A highway onramp to a major Toronto thoroughfare in an affluent Toronto neighborhood was closed for weeks without explanation as some drivers became confused over how to get to the nearby highway, even though they had access.
The complete closure is located off Service Road, which cuts through the suburb of Rosedale to the Gardiner Expressway, which connects the Gardiner to Highway 401. When drivers eventually could access the highway, it led to a particularly busy back-up on the other side of the busy transition.
“It’s more of a marathon than a straight shot,” one local driver told Toronto’s city council. “We’re driving the length of the Gardiner every week, we’re not far off the service road,” a local resident told council.
“I’m concerned about people actually coming down and crashing into each other in an emergency,” a resident told council.
The only explanation police give to these confused drivers is that a portion of Service Road had to be closed. Police explained, at first, to The Canadian Press, a Canadian news agency, that construction work on Service Road required part of the highway to be closed to traffic.
The Toronto Sun went further to suggest that the stretch of Service Road also had been temporarily closed due to a break in water main.
But other drivers have attempted to drive the stretch anyway to get to the highway.
“That route is still accessible and that isn’t really telling them anything they don’t already know, that people are still able to use those roads,” Ontario Provincial Police Const. Clint Stibbe told The Sun.