TORONTO

With more than 400,000 vehicles using its 15 lanes (four eastbound and four westbound express, three westbound and four eastbound collectors) each and every weekday, the high-level viaduct stretch of Hwy. 401 between Yonge St. and Avenue Rd. has the distinction of being one of the busiest in North America.

I’d be willing to bet that less than half-a-dozen of those 400,000 drivers have any idea that a substantial part of that 378-metre-long (1,240 ft.) viaduct consists of a bridge that was built 85 years ago.

In the early 1950s, as engineers were designing the new Toronto Bypass to funnel ever increasing traffic volumes around Toronto, it was decided to incorporate the 2.9-kilometre (1.8 mile) Yonge Blvd. Viaduct in the design.

Interestingly the viaduct (known as Hogg’s Hollow bridge, recognizing the Hogg brothers who, in the mid-1850s, created a community near the present Yonge St.-Wilson Ave.-York Mills Rd. intersection) was originally planned by the Toronto and York Roads Commission in the 1920. It was then intended as a bypass that would use Wilson Ave., the new viaduct, Yonge St. and Sheppard Ave. as a way of getting from west and east of the city (for example Weston and Scarborough) around the city.

The viaduct would also serve another purpose, allowing northbound and southbound traffic on Yonge St. to use Yonge Blvd. and the new viaduct (that re-connected with Yonge St. near Sheppard Ave. ) to get around the steep Hogg’s Hollow hills that were especially treacherous during the extra snowy winters I’m told were the norm back then.

Work on the Yonge Blvd. viaduct began in early 1928 and was completed in a mere nine months. The project was officially opened by George S. Henry, Minister of Highways, on Jan. 5, 1929. The cost -- $960,000.

A recent rehabilitation of the present Hwy. 401 bridge over the Don Valley and West Don River, and the massive 15-lane successor to the Yonge Blvd. Viaduct, cost $84 million.

*Here’s an update on the attempt to find a home for the selection of old postcards addressed to a Mr. Roderick Evans. A reader and a long-time friend of the Evans family e-mailed to say that, while members of Mr. Evans’ immediate family have all passed away, she is certain there are relatives who would treasure the cards and she is eager to continue the hunt. Stay tuned.

*“Mike Filey’s Toronto”, co-hosted by Mike and long-time radio personality Gene Stevens, is now heard twice each weekend, on Saturday and Sunday at 12:30 p.m., on Zoomer Radio am740.