Leslie Street to reopen on Saturday after numerous delays

A TTC streetcar takes on passengers within hours of the passage of back-to-work legislation in downtown Toronto Sunday April 27, 2008. It took politicians just 30 minutes during a rare Sunday sitting of the Ontario Legislature to pass the back-to-work legislation. (J.P. Moczulski / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

A section of Leslie Street in east-end Toronto is slated to re-open Saturday after being closed for nearly two years due to TTC construction.

Leslie Street, between Queen Street East and Commissioners Street, is scheduled to re-open this weekend to all traffic, the TTC said in a news release on Friday.

Lane restrictions, however, will be still be in effect as work continues on curb lanes and the installation of overhead power supply for streetcars. That work is expected to be completed this fall.

Portions of Leslie Street have been closed since September 2013 due to major water main replacement work and other utility relocation. The construction is part of the TTC's state-of-the art Leslie Barns project, which will house the transit agency's new generation of streetcars.

The re-opening of the east-end roadway comes after numerous delays in the Leslie Street barns project -- the latest one due to the TTC discovering in May that approximately 60 metres of streetcar track had been laid down approximately nine centimetres too high. The contractor error resulted in the tracks being ripped out and reinstalled.

The Leslie Barns was initially expected to be completed by 2014, but is now expected to open later this year.