Sinkholes are trying to swallow Toronto
A truck was sucked underground in the most recent incident, but luckily no one was hurt
It’s hard to avoid a sinking feeling with so many of Toronto’s streets mangled by construction. But, this past week, it was happenstance and old infrastructure that brought a wave of road-related havoc in the form of two gaping sinkholes—one in the east and one in the west—just days apart.
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The first, a nearly eight-metre-wide portal to hell, opened at Coxwell and Cosburn in East York on August 28 after an aging water main burst, creating a flooding brown River Styx beneath the intersection. Thankfully nothing fell into the sinkhole, and the city has since repaired and reopened the road. But at least four nearby basements have become de facto mudrooms from the ensuing water damage.
Never to be outdone by the east, the west end had its own cave-in moment on September 2. This time, it was on Weston Road near St. Phillip’s in Kingsview Village–The Westway. The street nearly swallowed a sanitary tanker truck, tumbling the rear end of the vehicle into an adjacent apartment building’s underground parking garage. No one was hurt in the incident, and emergency crews were able to haul the tanker out.
Lindsey King is a Toronto-based writer and editor whose work can be found in Toronto Life, Maclean’s, Canada’s 100 Best and more. She is interested in arts and culture, food and drink, architecture, design, and real estate stories
