City to begin repair on five bridges next year as part of Gardiner rehab project

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Traffic on the Gardiner Expressway will be further complicated as the highway’s rehabilitation plan continues into 2025.

The City of Toronto has announced the next stage of the Gardiner Expressway Strategic Rehabilitation Plan, which will see repair work done on five bridges this coming spring.

Repair work will begin on the five bridges in Section 3 of the Gardiner Expressway, which runs from Hwy. 27 to the Humber River. The bridges get a head start on Section 3 after critical repairs were needed after a condition assessment was conducted.

Section 3 of the highway plan is scheduled to take place between 2027 and 2031. Repair on the five bridges will need to be done ahead of the projected timeline.

The Gardiner overpasses at Park Lawn Rd. and Mimico Creek, along with the westbound on-ramp from Park Lawn Rd. over Mimico Creek, will be fully replaced. Repairs will be made to the Kipling Ave. and Islington Ave. bridges over the Gardiner Expressway.

Bridge repair work is slated to begin in spring 2025 with a slight pause from May to July 2026 to accommodate anticipated increased traffic during FIFA World Cup events in Toronto.

Work is expected to be finished by December 2026.

During the construction, lane and ramp restrictions are expected in the following areas:

– Eastbound Gardiner Expressway lanes will be narrowed with no lane reductions from Mimico Creek to Park Lawn Rd;

– Westbound Gardiner Expressway will be reduced from four lanes to three lanes for about a year from Park Lawn Rd. to Mimico Creek;

– Park Lawn Rd., in the area that passes under the Gardiner, will be reduced to a single lane in both directions for two months;

– Kipling Ave. and Islington Ave. will be reduced from six to four lanes for about eight months where they pass over the highway;

– Full closure of the Park Lawn Rd. on-ramp to westbound Gardiner Expressway between November 2025 and April 2026.

Construction is currently underway on Section 2 of the Gardiner Expressway plan, which began in November 2023, with its first lane closures this past March. In July, both municipal and provincial governments announced plans to accelerate construction work, moving the projected completion date from April 2027 to April 2026.

As a result, the first stage of Section 2 rehabilitation work was finished four months ahead of scheduled, the City of Toronto noted in a media release.