Mayor John Tory says that overnight work on the rehabilitation of the Gardiner Expressway will be temporarily halted for the weekend following numerous complaints from residents about “excessive noise.”
Crews have been working around the clock to rehabilitate the aging highway between Cherry and Jarvis streets, a project that isn’t expected to wrap up until early 2021.
While the most disruptive work associated with the project was supposed to take place prior to 11 p.m. some residents in the St. Lawrence neighbourhood have complained about having to endure “sleepless nights” due to the noise from jack hammering, drilling, saw cutting and other activities.
On Friday afternoon Tory released a statement sympathizing with those residents.
He said that while his office has been working with the contractor over the last several weeks to “reduce the disruptions as much as possible” it has become “abundantly clear that issues remain and further action is required.”
With that in mind, he said that a decision has been made to halt overnight work on the project all weekend so that efforts can be made to “determine a reasonable solution to mitigate the disruption.”
“This afternoon in discussions with city staff, (contractor) AECON acknowledged that the noise levels of the overnight work taking place past 11 p.m. have become a serious issue for members of the local community and, as a result, that AECON will cease overnight work effective tonight and through the weekend,” he wrote. “The senior team at AECON and the senior engineering team at the City of Toronto will meet immediately to address the approach being used on the overnight work and to address the noise levels.”
