Construction season doesn’t end with winter

Road work goes on where safe to do so

Expect terrible traffic to continue, especially on the eastern 417, even as Ottawa’s hectic construction schedule eases a bit for the winter, the city warned Friday.

Work on several major arteries, such as Rideau Street, Coventry Road and Meadowlands Drive will be suspended so bad road conditions don’t snarl traffic completely. And work on the 417 “will not occur at the same vigour,” said infrastructure director Alain Gonthier in a city hall briefing. Work will focus mainly on overpasses and ramps, meaning more highway lanes will be open. But the amount of work that needs to get done is so great that anywhere it can continue safely, it will, he said.

Besides the 417, roads that will continue to be under heavy construction are the stretch of Sussex Drive being rebuilt near the ByWard Market, Churchill Avenue, Queen Street and Trim Road.

Snowplowing plans have been adjusted to take the construction into consideration, said surface-operations manager Kevin Wylie. The city realizes that routes that are ordinarily secondary ways in and out of downtown have become primary ones and it will be salting and plowing accordingly.

Crews also plan to step up shovelling on sidewalks that are temporarily narrowed or rebuilt to allow construction on things such as the light-rail tunnel downtown, he said. Some don’t fit heavy snow-clearing equipment so they’ll be done by hand. That won’t cost any extra because the workers will be pulled from other jobs to make sure important “beats” are hit repeatedly, Wylie said.