Goodbye winter, hello spring
It has been an unbelievable winter for drivers. We have been hit, and hit hard, by the worst winter driving conditions this city has seen in a long time. So it feels great to be able to say goodbye to winter and hello spring!!
Even though we are not completely out of the woods yet we know that those snowy, icy, treacherous conditions will be behind us within the next few weeks.
And now we can look forward to … construction season!!
Well, if it’s not one thing it’s another. Because the weather has been so bad this winter many of the roads are in terrible shape. As the snow melts and the temperatures climb we are hit with pothole after pothole. We can see cracks in the asphalt and we can certainly feel how rough some of those road surfaces are.
Even this week I noticed a jump in the number of overnight work crews on the 401, with some scheduled maintenance on the 409 and the 427 as well.
So how can you keep on top of it? Well, we at the 680 Traffic Department will always do our best to cover as much as we can. But there are other tools at your finger tips as well. One of these tools is the TripInfo: 416-599-9090. It is a traveller information phone line that, among other things, provides scheduled road closure information for Ontario Ministry of Transportation highways and other streets within the City of Toronto.
Because there is so much information it can be a bit tricky and time consuming to navigate through all the choices. But if you go to their website at http://www.toronto.ca/transportation/tripinfo/index.htm you can get a list of the appropriate number codes for different routes. For example, #451 will connect you to the scheduled road construction on the 401 in Toronto, # 112 will connect you to the daily closures reports for Toronto south etc.
Now it’s time to get out your calendar. I can tell you right now that the DVP is scheduled to close the weekend of May 3-4th and Sept 6-7th for maintenance work, and the Gardiner is also scheduled to be closed for maintenance work April 12-13th and September 20-21st.
Construction season is tough on all of us. But it beats the alternative, namely roads that are almost impossible to drive on. Stick with us here at 680 and we’ll help you get through it.