Fixing drain appears to be a pipe dream
Problems sometimes slip through the cracks. But when the cracks happened nearly 10 years ago, that’s no longer an excuse.
That describes a large culvert at the foot of Bennett Rd., south of Lawrence Ave. E., which washed out during serious flooding way back in 2007. The flood caused a pedestrian path that ran above it to be closed and it has yet to be fixed.
We first wrote about it in 2009 and have since reported on it several times — most recently in 2014 — which easily makes it the longest unresolved problem we’ve ever dealt with. And so far, the city has offered an array of reasons why it has yet to be fixed, along with deadlines that are never kept.
We were first told about it by Kelly Byrnes, who files a yearly update on SeeClickFix about the lack of progress and recently sent us an email reminding us it has yet to be fixed.
We went there and found the same sign to warn people away that was there in 2014. But this time, we noticed a substantial new housing development on the west side of Bennett, which will only add to the people wanting to use the path to access nearby waterfront parks. Status: The last time we asked, the city told us an above-ground water main had to be moved, which was supposed to happen in 2014 but obviously didn’t. We’ve asked Toronto Water what’s going on and are waiting for its latest excuse.
Basketball Grinch has supporters In our last column before Christmas, we reported on a bylaw enforcement order that all basketball nets on Dunsfold Dr. be moved from the boulevard, after a complaint was made about a damaged car. We described it as a Grinch-like edict, but judging by the emails we got in support of the order, the basketball Grinch has at least a few fans.
“Grinch my eyeball!” said Anita Dermer. “When I bought my house, I didn’t so in hopes of living courtside. It’s one thing to tolerate a few hours of hockey or basketball a week, but quite another to put up with young men playing for ‘countless’ hours.”
Dieter Misch questioned the balance of our column, saying, “if it was your car damaged by a basketball, would you not have complained?”
Areader named Tom said, “Good for the guy who complained. I had kids running over my property, bouncing balls of my vehicles and running into them. Tell these kids to go to a school and shoot hoops like we did.” What’s broken in your neighbourhood? Wherever you are in Greater Toronto, we want to know. To contact us, go to thestar.com/ yourtoronto/the_fixer or call us at 416-869-4823 email jlakey@thestar.ca. To read our blog, go to thestar.com/news/ the_fixer. Report problems and follow us on Twitter @TOStarFixer.