Sinkhole brings chaos to busy road
A sinkhole in the middle of a small, but busy street near a major midtown crossroads will surely create traffic chaos.
Yonge St. and St. Clair Ave. is always plugged with traffic, considering the volume of vehicles traversing Yonge and the many streetcars that make their way out of the St. Clair TTC station heading west. Some drivers who want to turn left from Yonge onto eastbound St. Clair have discovered a handy shortcut: turn left at Heath St., north of St. Clair, and then go south on Alvin Ave. to St. Clair and make their left.
There’s no traffic signal at St. Clair and Alvin — just a stop sign — but it’s a good way to avoid the Yonge-St. Clair intersection, where no left turns are allowed most of the time.
Alvin backs onto office towers on the east side of St. Clair, north of Yonge, increasing the traffic on it, as do the doctor’s offices, professional buildings and a Montessori school on the small street.
It adds up to perpetual traffic backups on Alvin at St. Clair; nobody makes the left turn without having to nudge into the tightly packed vehicles heading east on St. Clair.
We were on Alvin last week when we found ourselves in a backup near St. Clair that was worsened by a sinkhole in the pavement at the worst possible spot, in the middle of the road, just north of the intersection.
Traffic heading in both directions on Alvin had to weave around it, although the problem seemed to be worse for traffic trying to get to St. Clair and turn left than the other way around.
Pavement under the line running down the middle of the street had collapsed and was covered by two pylons that were vulnerable to knocks from passing vehicles that could leave the depression unmarked to drivers.
We watched as southbound vehicles trying to turn left onto eastbound St. Clair had to weave around it, making the turn even harder, while northbound vehicles were similarly challenged to evade it.
STATUS: Diala Homaidan, a spokesperson for Toronto Water, emailed to say it was investigated on April 12, just before we sent the utility a note about it. “City crews inspected and found no water leak but did identify a failure in a sewer service line. The road has been covered by a plate, making it safe for the public. Due to extreme high traffic at this location, repairs to the sewer line need to be carefully planned. The city anticipates work will begin this week and last approximately two to four days.”
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