Mayor Rob Ford is concerned that city staff failed to tell his office that an outside engineering firm had discovered serious safety concerns with the Gardiner Expressway, but he maintains the highway is safe and should not be torn down.

“I believe it’s safe … I’m not tearing down the Gardiner,” Ford told reporters at a Monday morning news conference.

Ford’s comments are in line with what many of his colleagues on council have been saying, including his political nemesis, Adam Vaughan, and public works chair Denzil Minnan-Wong. All three have said tearing down the expressway is not feasible without creating a traffic crisis.

Ford said the highway, which is nearly 60 years old, is aging and “things are going to happen.”

But the mayor did appear annoyed that city staff apparently kept the report secret.

“I don’t know who was holding it off for six weeks but I think I should have been privy to the report, and I wasn’t,” Ford told reporters.

Ford, like Minnan-Wong, first learned that IBI Group’s troubling report was finished last Thursday, from the Star. That’s despite the fact that Minnan-Wong requested an update on the firm’s investigation on Sept. 13 — three days after the report was finished — and was told it wasn’t ready.

Among other things, IBI concluded there is no way to guarantee that concrete won’t fall off the underbelly and sides of the expressway. It recommended the city close sections beneath the highway to pedestrians and take other mitigating measures. The firm also had concerns with the way City of Toronto engineers were inspecting the expressway, mainly visual inspections.

The city hired IBI earlier this year after half a dozen small chunks of concrete fell onto Lake Shore Blvd., in one case hitting a car.

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