Congestion a sore point in Liberty Village

Residents frustrated by gridlock caused by summer festivals and Gardiner construction

- MANUELA VEGA

If Elran Granek wants to get to work on time, he has to leave his Liberty Village home at 6 a.m.

It’s about two hours earlier than he would like to be heading out, but the HVAC business owner says he’ll get stuck in traffic otherwise. He says he regularly stays at the office late for that same reason.

“(Traffic) makes it difficult to do anything, really,” he says. “I can’t get out of Liberty Village.”

Granek isn’t alone in his frustration. Congestion has become a pain point for the neighbourhood as summer events have caused streets to overflow with vehicles while closures on King Street and the Gardiner Expressway bottleneck traffic. Weekdays are particularly problematic, some residents say.

The Toronto Caribbean Carnival was a “disaster,” Granek says, recalling the standstill traffic that stretched from Strachan Avenue to Dufferin Street and flooded into the city. That weekend in early August, which saw cars inching forward over several hours as pedestrians seemingly zoomed past, stands out to him when he thinks of the city failing to plan for gridlock proactively.

In more recent weeks, the neighbourhood has been packed with thousands of visitors — with accompanying traffic — flocking to the nearby Canadian National Exhibition, which runs until Sept. 2.