Abandoned century-old bridge in Toronto is finally being demolished

An almost century-old Toronto bridge that has sat abandoned for 60 years is finally being demolished.

Demolition crews have descended on the Old Eastern Avenue Bridge, a rusting relic that has spanned the Don River since 1932, only to be abandoned just over three decades later.

Eastern Avenue’s old route across the Don was turned into a dead end with the 1965 opening of the Don Valley Parkway, and the street was realigned with a new elevated crossing to the north. 

Despite the significant transformation of the surrounding area in the decades since, the bridge has remained, to this day, a visibly aging reminder of the area’s long-changed street grid.

City of Toronto

For generations, the closed bridge has proven a popular spot for urban explorers, though the City has done its best to keep intruders off the crossing with fences and signs warning them of danger.

However, after languishing with no practical use since the 1960s, the Old Eastern Avenue Bridge’s time is finally up, as work has begun to tear down the disused structure.

According to Waterfront Toronto, the bridge increases flooding risks along this channelized section of the Don River. The waterfront management agency says that the low-lying crossing “would be an impediment to flood waters during a major storm.”

Making matters potentially much worse in the event of a severe storm, the bridge is not considered structurally sound, with Waterfront Toronto stating that it is “highly vulnerable to failure during future flooding events,” presenting the risk of the bridge causing damage if it dislodges into the river and flows downstream.

Crews from Priestly Demolition recently arrived on the scene to begin the meticulous disassembly of the bridge’s Howe truss structure, the same type of bridge-building method used on the nearby Queen Street Viaduct as well as the Sir Isaac Brock (Bathurst Street) Bridge.

In addition to mitigating its flooding risks, the removal of the bridge will pave the way for the construction of a flood protection landform on the eastern bank of the river.

This Broadview and Eastern Flood Protection (BEFP) project will follow on the success of a similar flood protection landform that protected 210 hectares of land to the west of the Don River in what has since been developed as the Canary District.

The BEFP project will build up the areas east of the bridge with an earthen berm designed to seal off the final low-lying section of the lower Don River’s banks and allow for future mixed-use development in the area.

The demolition of the Old Eastern Avenue Bridge is just one of many transformative changes happening along the lower stretch of the Don River.

The teardown now getting started comes on the heels of the demolition of the nearby Lever Ponds Soap Factory — making way for a massive mixed-use project on the aforementioned land being protected from flooding — and the installation of futuristic new bridges just downstream.