No end of ice in Gardiner Expressway underpass

The iciest sidewalk in town is in a place where it never snows an underpass beneath the Gardiner Expressway.

We had a small break last week from the brutal winter weather, which gave the city a chance to get caught up on clearing sidewalks that were coated with hard packed snow, glazed by ice.

But the effort to clear a backlog of sidewalks that hadnt been shovelled seems to have missed a section of The East Mall that runs through a Gardiner underpass, south of The Queensway.

A reader posted a report last May on SeeClickFix about water oozing from a retaining wall on the west side of the underpass, saying the sidewalk is always flooded and slippery, (and) lane two of the road is always flooded.

Its been this way for years, said the reader, noting that the city has never taken an interest in fixing it.

We forgot about it until this week, when we found new comments posted to the report last week about an icy moonscape on the sidewalk.

As of Jan. 18 the sidewalk is impassable, said the reader who made the original complaint. All pedestrians have to walk on the east side of The East Mall.

If someone is injured they can use this report to prove the city has had ample notice of the problem and failed to do anything almost a year later.

Someone with mobility issues is going to get hurt trying to navigate the sidewalk.

We went there on the weekend and found a small glacier in the curb next to the road, which goes on for a distance of 20 metres or so and extends onto the sidewalk.

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No end of ice in Gardiner Expressway underpass