Section 1: Jarvis Street to Cherry Street Rehabilitation

The City’s first project as part of the Gardiner Expressway Strategic Rehabilitation Plan:

• rehabilitated the westbound off-ramp leading to Yonge, Bay and York Streets,
• replaced the entire concrete deck and steel girders of the Expressway between Jarvis Street and Cherry Street, and
• replaced the westbound off-ramp at Sherbourne Street and the eastbound on-ramp at Jarvis Street.

To complete this work faster and to be less disruptive to the public, the City used an innovative construction technique called Accelerated Bridge Construction to replace concrete deck and steel girder sections on the elevated portion of the Expressway with prefabricated concrete deck panels.

During this project, the largest of its scale in North America, sections of the Expressway were saw cut, hoisted out of place and transported elsewhere to separate and recycle the concrete deck and steel girders. In contrast to conventional cast-in-place methods, this new approach resulted in less dust and noise and reduced overall construction time and traffic impacts by up to 40 per cent.

In total, 409 unique panels were produced in the fabrication yard located north of Lake Shore Boulevard East just east of Cherry Street. The videos below show how the new bridge panels were produced, transported and installed.

Fabrication Yard Overview

New panel journey from yard to bridge

New panel installation process 

Old panel removal process and recycling