Goal of twinned skyway by 2025 ‘still on the table’
Work is slowly moving ahead on the twinning of the Garden City Skyway, with some preliminary details available for public comment.
It was October 2013 when Bill Cung of the Ministry of Transportation came to a Niagara-on-the-Lake town council meeting to explain the preferred option for an eight-lane canal crossing.
He continues as the project manager, and the project continues on track for a second bridge to be constructed north of the existing span for Toronto-bound traffic, while the existing bridge would be used by vehicles heading toward Buffalo.
Twinning allows the ministry to build one new bridge and use it for traffic in both directions while the existing skyway deck is repaired, Cung said.
The preliminary design work and environmental assessment study have been completed, he said, although the detailed design work, which must be finished before the tendering process begins, is likely about three years away from completion. Some realignment of municipal roads will be necessary, including portions of Queenston Street and Dieppe, York, Niagara Stone, Coon, Taylor and Queenston roads; and also a realignment of a portion of the Welland Canals Parkway and trail. Minor changes are to be made to the easterly Niagara Street– QEW interchange ramps (the Dieppe and Dunkirk roads ramps); and three stormwater management ponds would be installed.
All told, there are about 70 locations where “properties will be required” to allow the work to proceed, said Cung. Negotiations have not yet begun with private property owners, and those are still a long way off, he said.
“Hopefully a lot of them will be settled amicably. Only as a last resort, if it becomes necessary, will we look at expropriation.
The project is not yet in the ministry’s five-year program, and won’t go out to tender until the funding and all approvals are place — in other words, he said, construction will start “once all the stars are aligned.”
“The time frame is vague at this point.”
But a completion date of 2025, if all goes well, “is still on the table, it’s still our goal.”
The project is expected to cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars with a more exact cost to be available once the detailed design has been completed.
The 2.2-kilometre-long Garden City Skyway was opened in October 1963 to get QEW traffic over the Welland Canal. It is 40 metres high at the crossing of the Welland Canal.
A Transportation Environmental Study Report has been prepared to document early design work and findings of the environmental assessment study for the span’s twinning. It is available for a 30-day public review, ending Oct. 17, including at the city clerk’s officse at St. Catharines city hall, the Environment Ministry office at 301 St. Paul St., the St. Catharines Public Library Carlton Street branch and the regional clerk’s office on Sir Isaac Brock Way in Thorold,
To comment, contact Cung by email at project-team@qewgcs.ca.