Road construction, TTC track work to impact King Street for next 10 months

Construction is nothing new for Toronto residents but for one busy downtown neighbourhood, it’s about to get worse.

Starting next week, the City will begin construction work on a stretch of King Street in Liberty Village to replace a 146-year-old watermain while the TTC will piggyback on that work to replace aging streetcar tracks in the area.

The project will be carried out in five phases, with the watermain replacement restricting travel to one lane in each direction until the end of July. Then until October, King Street will be closed in sections for TTC track replacement between Dufferin and Shaw while the intersection of King Street and Dufferin Avenue will be closed in all directions from June to July.

From October to December, there will be intermittent lane closures while road restoration and overhead streetcar work are completed.

The work is expected to impact one of the city’s biggest events, the Canadian National Exhibition, with construction happening to the north of one of the main gateways into the CNE, the Dufferin Gate. City staff say construction will pause during that time and will also pause on nights when people are scheduled to travel through the area on their way to events at Rogers Centre or Scotiabank Arena.

Business owners along King Street near Dufferin say they are no strangers to construction but fear their livelihoods will suffer.

“It’s going to be chaos around here,” one business owner tells The Leader Spirit. “I agree the construction has to be done but they should figure out something better.”

TTC SURFACE ROUTE CHANGES STARTING SUNDAY

In preparation for the street-level construction, the TTC is making significant changes to at least four of its surface routes between Dufferin and Shaw streets.

Starting Sunday, the 501 Queen streetcars will divert onto Dufferin Street (to Dufferin Gate Loop) until 10 p.m. After 10 p.m., 501 Queen streetcars will operate west to Long Branch Loop along its regular routing.

The 504A King streetcars will divert onto Queen Street West between Shaw Street and Roncesvalles Avenue and extend to Humber Loop before 10 p.m., and to Roncesvalles Avenue after 10 p.m. The 304 King streetcars will divert onto Queen Street between Roncesvalles Avenue and Shaw Street, operating between Dundas West Station and Broadview Station.

On Monday, the 508 Lake Shore streetcars will divert onto Queen Street West between Shaw Street and Roncesvalles Avenue while the 63 Ossington buses will be extended along King Street West between Dufferin Street and Roncesvalles Avenue, providing service both ways along King Street West, Liberty/East Liberty Avenue, and Strachan Avenue.

The city says streetcar track replacement work will take place 24 hours, seven days a week, as the TTC needs to complete some rail installation work overnight to protect the integrity and quality of the new rails and concrete. The city says it has structured the hours of construction to minimize noise disruption.

“The City recognizes there will be impacts to residents and commuters but completing this work is essential to ensure long-term road safety and transit reliability while reducing future disruption,” city officials said in a statement.

The construction work is also happening at the same time as work on a stretch of the Gardiner Expressway is set to resume this spring, reducing it to two lanes in each direction between Dufferin Street and Strachan Avenue. The city says it will adjust signal times on nearby major streets Bathurst Street, Dundas Street, and Lake Shore Boulevard to help handle the traffic overflow.

The overlapping projects are not expected to be completed until December 2024 but the city notes that more watermain and track work is planned along the street for 2025 and 2026.