This Scarborough road has been under repair for 2 years but you still can't drive on it

The city's road repair crews have some good news and some bad news for residents of one Scarborough neighbourhood.

The good news: Repairs to Military Trail, a major local artery that's been closed for repairs for more than two years, should begin again sometime this fall.

The bad news: The road will likely remain closed until the spring of 2024, meaning residents are still facing months of gridlock and travel delays.

Mobushar Pannu, director of roadway design and construction for the city, says he's aiming to have the problems solved and the road re-opened this year, but says next spring may be more realistic. 

"Although it's a small section of roadway and it appears easy (to re-build),  we have a lot of curves and elevations, which makes it complicated," said Pannu. "When we did our surveys it became evident that the work had some serious deficiencies that had to be corrected."

The issue will be up for discussion at city hall at a meeting of the infrastructure and environment committee on Wednesday, when staff will try to answer questions about the delays from Coun. Paul Ainslie (Ward 24 Scarborough-Guildwood). 

"Residents have had to rely on alternative routes through local roads, which has caused congestion and additional travel time," Ainslie wrote in a letter to staff last spring. "The community deserves transparency and a clear plan for the timely completion of this important infrastructure project."

In a written response to be presented at Wednesday's committee meeting, city manager Paul Johnson appears to put the blame for the delays on the contractor hired by the city to do the work, Sanscon Construction Ltd.

"Throughout the course of this project, there were multiple instances of the contractor either not producing an adequate construction schedule or not meeting the agreed upon construction schedule," Johnson writes. "In addition to the above-noted delays, work was also paused for periods of time due to what was suspected, and has since been proven, to be deficiencies in the work."

Sanscon has no written response included in the agenda for Wednesday's meeting, and has not yet responded to calls and emails from CBC Toronto.

The problems in the area around Neilson Road and Ellesmere Road began in September 2021, when the city shut down a busy one-kilometre stretch of Military Trail between Ellesmere and Highcastle roads to all traffic. Work began the following February when contractor Sanscon started re-building the road, which included new curbs, adding a sidewalk and re-building the bridge over Highland Creek.

Johnson's letter maintains that when city inspectors visited the site in the summer of 2022, they found that contractor Sanscon had misjudged the grade of the curves and also installed the wrong size curbs. 

But Pannu says it's not as straightforward a job as one might expect. 

He points out that the stretch of road runs through a ravine and is particularly hilly and winding. It also crosses a major Enbridge gas line, and the bridge that crosses Highland Creek will also have to be replaced.