More lane closures on Queens Quay beginning next week

TORONTO – City officials announced even more closures along busy east-west routes in Toronto on Thursday.

City officials will be closing two Queens Quay intersections –York Street and Rees Street – beginning on June 2 so crews can get in and rebuild the streetcar corridor.

Westbound traffic will remain open but access to Queens Quay will be restricted from both York and Rees streets during the construction.

There is some relief for drivers however; Lower Spadina Avenue and Lower Simcoe Street will be reopened by June 2.

The construction is part of the $110-million revitalization of the area that is seeking to turn the boulevard into Toronto’s version of Paris’ Champs Elysees.

The project is scheduled to be done by July 2015 when the area will fully reopen with a streetcar right-of-way as well as trees and granite sidewalks lining the street from Bay Street to Bathurst Street.

But until then, trying to move east or west in the area can be challenging – the Gardiner Expressway is down one lane in both directions for the next two years (with a brief reprieve during the Pan Am Games) and a series of intermittent lane closures on Lakeshore Boulevard are scheduled to continue until mid-July.