Drake lives in Toronto. So do hip-hop artists Miguel and The Weeknd. Street hockey is big there.
So are parked cars.
So, then, why has the hole in Humber Street in the Financial District remained closed with no work done for months?
Part of the reason is that Toronto city workers are going after tunneling geotechnical elements involved in the path of the light-rail transit line coming to Toronto from the suburbs, city spokeswoman Erin O’Toole told the Toronto Star.
They’ve done “robust” testing of the soil there, she said. “It’s all taken into account when we’re looking at it structurally.”
Water gushing from the tunnel will be recaptured and reused, she added.
A second reason is that many of the landscaping vendors for the site “are not licensed and abiding by the standards we expect on properties,” O’Toole said.
Some of that is because Humber Street wasn’t designed with sidewalks and medians, so merchants have no business being along the street.
It’s unclear why. One big difference between this and the Eastern U.S. situation with the broken city light rail tunnel is that Toronto is burying the freeway and replacing it with a new road that will have only an elevated section.
It’s been closed at an industrial stretch of Humber Street in downtown Toronto since June, and has had little or no movement by late last month, according to the Star. As a result, a gray area of extended emptiness has taken root.
Posters and slogans have lined the sidewalk. Some welcome a solution. Some just want to read. (Picture here.)
Some users have placed their own memorials in the demolished roadway:
“Do we know why it’s been closed?” asks one poster. “Is it really that fragile?”
Toronto’s mayor, John Tory, has said he’s frustrated.