Crumbling sidewalk on Kingston Rd. between Warden and Manderley
By Hedy Korbee
Birch Cliff residents waited years for the revitalization of Kingston Road and now that winter’s over and the snow has melted, many are upset to see that our brand new sidewalks are pockmarked and crumbling.
Damage to the sidewalks, which were laid in August, is extensive and apparent on both sides of Kingston Rd. from Birchmount Rd. all the way to Warden Ave.
“I am surprised they would do something like this. This is unprofessional and unacceptable for the community and the business,” said Sameh Bolos, owner of Mina Drug Mart at 1474 Kingston Rd.
Senior engineer surprised
Birch Cliff News met up with Ward 36 Councillor Gary Crawford, Senior Engineer Thomas Yeung and a City of Toronto inspector to examine the damage on Monday.
Yeung said he was surprised and has never seen damage like this before that clearly goes beyond a few batches of bad concrete.
“We can…see visually there’s definitely a problem,” said Yeung. “But we have to do some core testing to find out what’s the reason for the peeling that soon and that fast after a couple of months of pouring.”
Yeung said the City of Toronto is trying to be proactive and last month contacted the contractor, Sanscon Construction, to start working on a solution.
“The contractor has been in business for a long time. This is their bread and butter. They do lots of concrete sidealks and roads around the city. They have lots of contracts,” said Yeung.
Councillor Crawford unhappy
Councillor Gary Crawford was clearly unhappy and quick to point out that the sidewalk contract comes with a two-year guarantee.
“It will get done,” said Crawford. “It will get fixed. That’s for sure.”
“It’s frustrating,” continued Crawford. “You want to have this beautiful boulevard and here we are having to look at improvements. Sometimes that happens. It is guaranteed. We will have to get it resolved. That’s the main thing.”
Phase II of Kingston Rd. construction.
Photo Credit: Marielle Torrefranca
Same contractor building Phase II
Finding the cause of the problem is especially important because Sanscon Construction also has the contract to build new sidewalks in Phase II of the Kingston Rd. revitalization plan, from Warden to Victoria Park.
Reconstruction on that leg of the project began on March 17th and they’re scheduled to start pouring concrete for the sidewalks this week.
Yeung said that the City will have on-site inspection and quality control in place.
Rebuilt or repaired?
In terms of fixing the already damaged sidewalks, Yeung said it’s too early to say whether they will need to be repaired or completely rebuilt.
The prospect of either strikes fear in the heart of Sameh Bolos at Mina Drug Mart, who said he lost 20 – 30 per cent of his business during last year’s construction and is concerned it’s about to start all over again.
“What about our business? How are they going to fix it?” said Bolos.
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good story. Thanks for doing this.
Good stuff!
Would love to see a story about Glen Everest Road. Busy street with multiple apartment buildings, parking on 1 side of the street, many children, disabled & seniors but NO SIDEWALKS. It’s dangerous for all. I realize this is Birchcliff News & not Cliffside but perhaps you could pass this on.
We are officially Birch Cliff but very interested in all the surrounding neighbourhoods as well. We’ve done a couple of stories about sidewalks in the Bluffs – here’s one: http://www.birchcliffnews.com/sidewalks-in-scarborough-bluffs/
We’ll see what we can do about Glen Everest.
Has there been any movement on filling the pot holes in the laneway on the south side of Kingston between Haig and Warden? Has this been brought to the attention of the city? There are holes as much as six inches deep. The laneway is well used by local vehicular and pedestrian traffic. The condition has deteriorated over the summer and it would be important to at least have the potholes filled before the winter as I am sure it would present safety issues for residents who live on the laneway and other public users when covered with ice and snow. Has the city received any requests to do this work yet?