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There’s a saying that in Toronto, we only have two seasons: winter, and construction.
But for people living along parts of two major roads in the city’s Cabbagetown-South St. James Town neighbourhood, one of those seasons is starting to feel harsher than usual.
Since May, construction on Wellesley Street between Parliament and Jarvis has reduced the roadway to a single, westbound lane. While a block south, ongoing construction on Carlton Street has done the opposite, reducing the stretch between Yonge and Church to a single lane of eastbound traffic.
Adjoining roadways near these current construction zones has also been plagued by projects in recent years, leaving residents to navigate seemingly perpetual construction, traffic and transit disruptions.
“This is the second summer that this area has been shut down,” said Sue Leaman, who normally relies on the Carlton streetcar to get to work.
“It’s having a huge impact, I think, on people getting around,” she said. “[It’s] two years in a row, and the whole summer will be gone.”
Construction on Carlton Street between Yonge and Church has eliminated eastbound traffic and affected transit service. (Michael Cole/CBC)
At Wellesley Street and Homewood Avenue, local resident Sandra Kirstin says she’s tired of the ongoing projects.
“It’s really inconvenient, and its taking too long,” she said, while pointing out sidewalk closures along Wellesley. “I walk by this intersection almost everyday. Earlier I thought I was going to get hit by one of the vehicles … Where can I [walk] safely?”
She said the closeness of the two construction projects is especially frustrating, and urged the city to “try to plan a little better.”
Construction on Wellesley Street has affected local traffic and bus routes. (Michael Cole/CBC)
Toronto’s traffic czar, Andrew Posluns, who oversees congestion management, says the city tries to avoid these kinds of parallel construction projects. But tackling all the city’s aging infrastructure at once is challenging.
He says multiple layers of repairs, like electrical, water main and track replacements, typically need to happen in stages.
“We work together to do, for example, TTC streetcar work and water main work at the same time. We make sure we bundle to minimize the disruption.”
Matti Siemiatycki, director of the Infrastructure Institute at the University of Toronto, said “it seems like there’s a constant lack of co-ordination” between construction projects.
“It seems like a Google Calendar and some scheduling should be able to fix it. But we’re well past a decade of trying to get after this, and it just hasn’t found a solution yet,” he said.
Projects could also be completed faster, he said, if the city could get better funding and approve longer working hours for contracting companies.
He pointed to recent construction on the Gardiner Expressway, which was finished a full year ahead of schedule after the province injected an additional $73 million into the project in 2025.
But Patrick McManus, director the Greater Toronto Sewer and Watermain Contractors Association, says it wasn’t just money that sped up that project. It was the prioritization of construction over public access to the Gardiner.
“What worked with the Gardiner is they largely closed it down,” he said. “They shut down lots of lanes, disrupted traffic, they went to 24/7 construction, and that project flew.”
WATCH | Gardiner Expressway construction timeline cut in half:
Good news, drivers: Gardiner construction is set to finish this month
Construction on the Gardiner Expressway is expected to be finished by the end of the month, over a year ahead of the original schedule, according to the province and Toronto’s mayor.
McManus says downtown construction projects have to balance the work that needs to be done with the impact on the public.
“It becomes an issue of the will of the public. What they’re willing to accept, and how far they’re willing to to go with the disruption.”
Construction on the Wellesley and Carlton Street projects is expected to be done by December.