February 26, 2010

DAN O’REILLY

The first priority on the $32 million widening of Queen St. in Brampton has been the intersection improvements and the bridge work.

FEATURE | Roadbuilding

Brampton, Ontario road expansion project scores two goals in a single shot

DAN O’REILLY

correspondent

The $32-million two-lane widening and reconstruction of a seven- kilometre section of Queen Street East in Brampton is the largest single road contract project ever undertaken by Peel Region and is also helping to improve public transit connections.

As part of the highway’s expansion from Airport Road to Highway 50, general contractor Fermar Paving Limited is making major intersection improvements to facilitate Brampton’s new rapid bus system, ZÜM.

The system will be rolled out later this year to connect downtown Brampton to York University.

Improvements have included the construction of additional bus-only lanes at four key roads. Concrete pads for bus stops have already been built and in the spring concrete pads for the passenger kiosks will be poured, says Fermar site superintendent Tyler Magee.

The glass and metal kiosks will be on the north and south sides and erected by a subcontractor starting in the summer, he says.

While the east-west highway is being broadened from four to six lanes, the term expansion doesn’t fully convey the extent of this multi-purpose reconstruction project which started in August 2009 and scheduled for completion in December, says Magee.

The intersection improvements are just one component of the project which also encompass major sewer and water main installation, culvert extension, the creation of curbs and gutters, plus a major widening of one bridge which crosses the West Humber River and a partial widening of a second bridge spanning a CNR rail line to make room for a bicycle path the City of Brampton will be adding at a later date.

But the first priority has been the intersection improvements and the bridge work. In fact, a major portion of the project to date has been the three-deep, three-span widening on both the north and south sides of the West Humber River Bridge. It has included the installation of four new piers and four new abutments and the erection of temporary coffer dams.

“We had to build four access roads just to get the site and have to work on the bridge in a very short time,” says Magee, citing environmental regulations which ban construction in the river from March 15 to June 15.

For now the work area is fairly quiet with only about 15 to 20 personnel on site but the project will ramp up in the spring as grade stripping and excavation gets underway, says Magee.

All this activity is being carried out along one of the busiest highways in Peel Region.

“It’s the traffic. We’re only allowed to have lane closures in non-rush hours. They can’t be closed until after 9 a.m. and have to be reopened before 3:30 p.m,.” says Magee.

The entire seven-kilometre stretch is one big construction site so Peel Region Council lowered the speed limit from 80 to 60 kilometres. Despite the lower limit and increased fines for speeding through construction zones, it has been only partially successful.

“Every day the police are ticketing speeders,” says Magee.

The project is the largest single contract road project ever awarded by Peel region, says construction inspector Serguei Kabanov. While the widening of Mayfield Road on the Brampton/Caledon boundary is much larger and more expensive, it’s been divided into a number of phases with several different contractors.

An illustration of the sheer scope, size and complexity of the Queen Street undertaking is the contract document itself, says Kabanov: “It covers more than 1,000 different items.”

A 2002 environmental assessment concluded the highway required expansion to facilitate the increased traffic triggered by adjacent residential and commercial development, says Peel Region project manager Tony Bosco.

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