Get off your bike — the city is building a deck
Police are asking cyclists to dismount on section of road that’s been narrowed by construction
On Wednesday morning, a pair of brothers who call the Toronto Police service a “family business” woke up bright and early, and pulled fluorescent outerwear over their uniforms.
By 7 a.m., Const. Mike Ghazarian and Const. Anto Ghazarian were flanking either side of a construction zone at Dan Leckie Way and Queen’s Quay. Each cyclist on the designated bike path was asked to dismount and walk for 60 metres.
It’s the first week of school for students of the elementary and high schools behind them, and the small construction zone made the pathway smaller. That threatened the safety of students on the last leg of their walk to class.
“There’s multiple people that live in this community that walk their grandkids and their kids to school just west of us,” Anto said cheerfully, still standing outside regulating cyclists at 10:30 a.m.
The red-brick building behind him — embellished with vibrant panels on both the front and the sides — is home to not only City School and the Waterfront School, but the Waterfront Neighbourhood Centre.
“They deemed the first of week of school to be a little unsafe, with the cyclists roaring through and not dismounting,” Anto said. He wasn’t sure if Toronto Police had ever sent officers out on similar assignments before.
The construction is set to expand on the pedestrian portion of the Martin Goodman Trail at the Portland Slip, which narrows down to a point at the corner. The space left is too narrow for the trail to run parallel to the sidewalk, so the city is building a deck over a portion of the slip.
One Silver Maple tree required a permit to be removed from the immediate construction zone, to be replaced with two new Silver Maples at the end of the project.
On Wednesday, officers were slated to be there until around 4 p.m., after school lets out for the day and when construction is scheduled to pause until Thursday.
Mike said they’d had 100-per-cent success with getting riders off their bikes.
“I would say most people,” Anto clarified. “Some people I would have to tell them multiple times, but overall I feel like the message is very clear at this point.”
The construction project is being completed by Waterfront Toronto and their contractor, Somerville Construction, and began the week of Aug. 21. The scheduled time for completion is between six and eight weeks, though fluctuating water levels in Lake Ontario and the weather could affect their current timelines.