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Fear the day cracks join up to make block-long pothole

I was inspired by your online letter writer (“Potholes have gotten worse despite all the roadwork,” Feb. 28), who was concerned about the city’s potholes in East York. He has nothing on midtown Toronto.

I was inspired to take a few snapshots of the potholes on a street I take on the way to work every day: Millwood Road.

Being such a well travelled street, particularly by commuters, you’d think it would be well taken care of by the city. If so, I shudder to think what bad condition the less important streets may have been allowed to degenerate into.

In just one stretch of Millwood between Mt. Pleasant Road and Bayview Avenue, I found at least six problems with the pavement.

For the largest three potholes I’ve sent to you some photos to share, including a grate that has sunk into the pavement creating a special hazard.

That stretch of road is getting so bad that I expect the cracks radiating out from the bad patches will eventually join up to create one block-long pothole!

It’s not even as if this is a particularly bad section. I stopped taking pictures after a block because I thought that was enough to make my point.

But the potholes, sinkholes, cracks and broken pavement seemed to continue well beyond that point.

However, I had to discontinue stopping my car every few metres to take pictures and get to work.

Yes, I’m one of the people who drive to work every day, putting stress on the roads, causing them to heave and crack and fall apart every spring. (Though I could swear some of those potholes were there last  fall.)

But like your letter writer, it does seem strange to me that I have wasted so much time trying to navigate around repair crews on the road, only to find the streets in worse repair than ever this year.

S.J. Singer
Duplex Avenue

One thought on “Fear the day cracks join up to make block-long pothole

  • Otto Richter

    How ironic that this correspondent complains about the potholes on Millwood. Yes, it is bad there. But then the letter writer signs off as living on Duplex, home of one of the worst stretches of road in Toronto! Obviously you don’t drive down your own street on the way to work, because if you did you could hardly miss that portion of Duplex south of Eglinton that is one mass of networking holes and cracks and ravines in the pavement.

    The heavy traffic of buses from the Eglinton station may have something to do with it. But the rest of us drivers and bicycle riders need to travel it too!

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