It’s Official: Torontonians Are Completely Fed Up With Never-Ending Construction Closures

If you’ve had enough of the maddening Toronto construction, you’re not alone.

A new poll suggests an impossible-to-ignore majority of Torontonians are saying “hell, no” when it comes to the long-term closure of sidewalks and traffic lanes in the city due to seemingly never-ending construction projects.

A recently released Forum Research poll randomly sampled 757 Toronto voters to find that 76 per cent of respondents don’t think contractors and developers should have permission to close off traffic lanes and sidewalks for long-term projects.

In fact, only 15 per cent of those surveyed reported that they thought the Toronto construction closures were appropriate.

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Image: Global News

Meanwhile, just over 50 per cent of respondents said that construction-related traffic and sidewalk closures shouldn’t last for longer than a weekend. Of those, about 16 per cent say the closures shouldn’t last for longer than one day (I’m not sure if that’s possible, but it sounds ideal).

Only about 29 per cent of respondents say a week or two is an acceptable length of time for a construction-related closure.

Luckily, we have Mayor John Tory on our side. Earlier this month, Tory announced he would crack down on long-term construction closures in the city.

It’s definitely time: The poll found that nearly half of Torontonians agreed with the statement that “continuous construction downtown makes it difficult to get around,” as opposed to the approximately 23 per cent who agreed that the perpetual downtown construction means that the city is “thriving.”

toronto-construction

Image: Urban Toronto

A lucky 25 per cent of those surveyed said that the downtown construction doesn’t affect them at all.

Um, perhaps they work from home? Either that, or they don’t live or work in the downtown core (or, have the patience of a saint).

Hopefully, with Tory’s new strategy, the construction-related traffic and congestion will hopefully relax to manageable levels. Because right now, it’s the worst part of pretty much every downtown-dwelling or working Torontonian’s day on the regular.

And, sadly, no – our public transportation system doesn’t offer any consolation.

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