THUNDER BAY – The next stretch of four-laning for Highway 11/17 appears to be one-year ahead of schedule.
On Tuesday, Minister of Northern Development and Mines Michael Gravelle announced an update for the 2016-’17 Northern highways program, a $541 million investment to rehabilitate and expand highway projects across this region.
“We are excited to provide this update as some of the projects are moving more quickly than we had expected,” Gravelle said.
The four-laning project on highway 11/17 between Birch Beach and Pass Lake was scheduled for completion at the end of the 2017 fall construction season, but with construction well underway the four-laning will open up at the end of this construction season.
Gravelle said significant work will be done throughout the rest of the season but by fall of this year there will be another 11 kilometre section going right to Pass Lake from Thunder Bay.
“There are two or three other projects that are ongoing and that work will be completed certainly on schedule, including the extensive work that’s happening on the Nipigon Bridge,” Gravelle said.
The minister added that another 21 kilometres of work between Nipigon and Red Rock is scheduled for completion by the end of the 2017 construction season.
“We are committed to finish the four-lane project,” Gravelle said.
“We are going to get this project completed and I couldn’t be more excited about it.”
While the province may be ahead of schedule, MTO manager of operations Gary Weiss reiterated the Nipigon to Red Rock four-laning is a long-term project and there’s still a number of years left.
“We are working on the road as much as possible to get that done,” Weiss said.
“There’s a lot of foundation work we have to do and some bridge work that will be getting done in the next couple of years.”
