At their meeting yesterday, regional councillors voted unanimously in favour of continuing some preparation, or early work projects, at the busy intersection this year, as planning continues on a final design that will be back before council in the spring of next year.
District 12’s Janet Steele said she was happy that delays in getting to this point didn’t impact the ability to begin work this year.
“I was worried with the month or so delay that we had in January and February that it might mean that things would not be happening this summer, but they are moving forward and that’s great,” said Steele.
District 9 Councillor Shawn Cleary also spoke in support of the motion, saying that by getting started now, ahead of a finalized plan, the city would still be eligible for external funding.
“Nothing here precludes the discussion that we had earlier that it’s imperative that we get a rapid transit through this area and we have safe AT (active transportation) infrastructure,” said Cleary. “The timeframe that you have means that if you said, ‘OK fine, we will go and do the design,’ we lose all of the external funding because that is going to take another 8, 10–12 months.”
City staff told council that by getting work underway this year, the project maintains eligibility for $30 million in external funding from the federal and provincial governments.
Work on the project is scheduled to begin in August with some underground work in the area of Forrester, Bayne and Mackintosh streets. That will be followed by some prep work for a new overpass that will see some lane reductions later this fall.