Get Revived on Route 45

Signpost on Lower Don Trail at Riverdale Park footbridge

Not as poetic as Get Your Kicks on Route 66, but the Lower Don Trail does take you to some interesting places. The city placed these signs along the trail in 2004 as part of a city wide bicycle trail initiative.

However, as reported on Dodgeville, they don't always get it right. In addition, construction projects in the past year have caused some of the signs to misdirect the unwary.

Some people have been asking about what's happening with the trail closure south of Queen. The trail was closed last year to perform some critical flood protection work on the railway span across the Don (see my post from December 2006).

Since then they have been hard at work. Even though the signs on the trail say "Reopening May 2007" delays in construction and scheduling have meant that this will be pushed back to sometime in July. I was forwarded a message from Ken Dion, TRCA site manager for the project, dated April 5, 2007. Here's what he had to say:

The underground high voltage cables were relocated into their new alignment west of the new bridge abutment approximately 1 month ago. The southern half of the new railway abutment was completed towards the end of March. As of 5:30 this morning [April 5] the last of the bridge girders were put in place on the south side of the railway bridge over the Don. Structurally, for all intensive [sic] purposes, we now have the main features of the bridge construction completed on both the northern and southern sides of the bridge (new abutment, new deck transformation of old abutment into a pier).

Over the next 3 months, construction will continue on shoring up the new riverbank, excavating the new river channel and placing the finishing engineering touches on the structure. Construction on the eastern half of the Bala Underpass is scheduled to start later in April. We anticipate that the Don Watershed Trail will be opened sometime in July though it is likely that the final revegetation in the area will not be completed until some time in the Fall.

I don't know whether they will be having a reopening ceremony at the time, but I will certainly keep you posted about any new developments when I hear about them.