What's going on with construction traffic in downtown Toronto? Here's what we found

"We're being strangled by gridlock." 

That's how one planning expert described congestion in Toronto right now. And it doesn't look like it's going away anytime soon. 

The downtown core normally sees a lot of construction projects each summer, but this year there's a big addition. Significant work is now underway on the Ontario Line, with the full closure of Queen Street to motorists and cyclists between Bay and Victoria streets until at least 2027.

So how is the city managing congestion? And how did it decide what other infrastructure work needs to be done at the same time? CBC Toronto went looking for answers about what's being done and what other solutions might help keep the city moving.

To get a sense of what construction is underway downtown, and provide a resource to navigate the related traffic, CBC Toronto built a map of current road restrictions in the downtown core based on available city data. 

The interactive map includes 50 road restrictions in the downtown area bordered by Bathurst Street in the west, College Street in the north, Parliament Street in the east and Lakeshore Boulevard in the south. Hover over the dot on top of each restriction to find out what lanes are affected and how it's supposed to last.

Here's all the construction impacting traffic downtown right now:

A couple years ago, a model-based study from Metrolinx tried to figure out the worst-case scenario for traffic during morning (7-9 a.m.) and afternoon (4-6 p.m.) rush hour periods in downtown Toronto when factoring in future restrictions from both Ontario Line and city-led construction. 

To determine a conservative, worst-case estimate, the study assumed all the planned city-led construction was happening at the same time. The results of the study were included in a November 2021 report to the city's executive committee on temporary road closures and community impacts of the Ontario Line.

During the afternoon peak, the study projected it would take 46 minutes to drive east along Adelaide Street from Bathurst Street to Parliament Street. The pre-construction base estimate was 22 minutes, with an additional 24 minutes added because of city-led and Ontario Line construction. 

WATCH | CBC Toronto tests out traffic, looks for solutions:

CBC Toronto decided to test out that projection by driving the same route during the afternoon rush. The first time, on Wednesday, May 31 at 4:40 p.m. the drive took 29 minutes.

But just over a week later on Thursday, June 8 at 5:11 p.m. the same three kilometre drive along Adelaide Street between Bathurst and Parliament streets took 52 minutes — six minutes longer than the study's worst-case scenario and double what Google Maps estimated at the start of the drive.

Roger Browne, director of traffic management for the city, says his department's own simulation models for the Queen Street closure predicted a "catastrophic impact in terms of congestion levels."