County Road 42 $36M expansion to add traffic circles
The first phase of a $36-million expansion of County Road 42 from the edge of Windsor to Manning Road in Tecumseh is underway after county council chose Dillon Consulting to provide engineering services for the massive project.
The construction work, which is expected to begin in 2020, will include two new roundabouts — at Banwell Road and at Manning Road. The roadway will be widened to four lanes from two, with a fifth lane for left turns.
In addition, the off-set intersection of County Road 43, commonly called Banwell Road to the north and Concession 11 to the south, will be reconfigured to a straight run.
“The intent is to relocate those two intersections to one intersection west of where they are now and build a multi-lane roundabout,” said Tom Bateman, the county ’s director of infrastructure services.
Bateman said off-set intersections “perform really poorly” because drivers must actually get on the main road to reach the intersection of the connecting section of road.
Dillon will begin the project’s engineering work immediately, mapping out utilities that will need to be moved. That may trigger property acquisitions in some areas, Bateman said.
He expects the utility relocation work to begin in 2019, with the road work to take another five years to complete.
Motorists can expect delays but no road closures.
“Our intent will be to keep the roads open at all times, at least (County Road) 42,” Bateman said. “We may have to close some of the side roads for short durations. We’re not going to close … any of the main corridors for any length of time.”
Maintaining access to businesses and residences will also be a challenge, he said.
“It’s very busy with the through traffic. Numbers are high and accessing it will be challenging but again nothing that we haven’t dealt with in the past,” Bateman said.
And this is just the beginning of the expansion work on County Road 42.
Bateman said the environmental assessment and preliminary design also include next-phase improvements all the way to County Road 25 in Puce.
He said he’s anxious to get going on the project, which has been in the planning stage for a couple of years, but improvements to County Road 22 need to be finished so that there isn’t roadwork on two parallel corridors at the same time.
It is expected one more phase of widening of County Road 22 — from County Road 25, or East Puce Road, to I.C. Roy Drive — will be completed this summer.