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2012-08-17 at 16:26

Open for business: MTO opens new section of divided highway

By tbnewswatch.com
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Rebate, Rebate, RebateRebates for just about everyone. $500 Graduate Rebate; $500 Loyalty Rebate; $500 Rebate for Active Military Personnel.www.thunderbaymitsubishi.ca

For the first time in 17 years a new four-lane section of highway has opened up in the Thunder Bay area. 

Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation announced Friday that the new lanes between Hodder Avenue and Highway 527 are now open to traffic. 

The project also includes the region's first-ever highway interchange. The upgrade was announced in the spring of 2009 and got underway in August 2010.

The $42-million contract was won by Sudbury's TeraNorth Construction and Engineering. 

The interchange and five kilometres of new highway were originally planned to be completed in the summer of 2013, but the contractor is way ahead of schedule. 

The overpass and interchange opened up just recently, and the eastbound lanes are now paved and ready to use. 

The westbound route has been reduced to one lane for now, so that paving work can be completed. 

The last time a new section of four-laning opened was in 1995, when the five-kilometre section between Balsam Street and Hodder Avenue was completed.



(Thunder Bay Television)

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Comments

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Swirly-Q says:
Nice to see a competent contractor doing a good job ahead of schedule for a change. Well done, TeraNorth.
8/17/2012 4:59:32 PM
hadenough says:
I agree and Pioneer Construction is doing an excellent job on Dawson Road also.
8/17/2012 5:59:26 PM
tbay99 says:
While I agree with your post almost completely. Projects like these can and often are delayed due to weather conditions which are obviously not the fault of the contractor.
8/17/2012 10:08:37 PM
anon says:
It's funny how quickly they can do such a big job compared to the little projects that seem to take forever in this town.
8/18/2012 12:01:57 AM
barrows says:
Looks great, but why did they choose this site as Thunder Bay's fisrt interchange? Is there a back up of traffic like there is at Red River Rd or Arthur St
8/17/2012 5:20:12 PM
hey says:
It all has to do with sight lines. there is a hill and corner there and the other intersections are straight and relatively level. There wont be any interchanges in those spots in our lifetime if ever
8/18/2012 8:02:31 AM
damanisback says:
8 million a k bridge included = 800 million here to nipigon (worth it ?)
8/17/2012 6:04:35 PM
twisted says:
This should have happened at least 5 years ago....
8/17/2012 6:28:46 PM
Escroft says:
I still go by what I said when they started this project 2 years ago: THEY PUT IT IN THE WRONG PLACE. It belongs on either Red River Road, Harbor Expressway, or Arthur Street.
8/17/2012 6:48:36 PM
Steven says:
Bang on! This was the stupidest spot to put one. Instead, red river, arthur, and the harbour expressway with their 1000s of cars (instead of 10's) will continue to be congestion choke points.

What a boondoggle.
8/18/2012 7:15:29 PM
trent says:
This is great, hopefully the Red River/Dawson intersection is next to get an interchange.
8/17/2012 6:53:05 PM
crazyforweed says:
Lookin good !
8/17/2012 7:16:28 PM
SomeGuy says:
Great news, now lets work on twinning all of the Trans Canada this is the transportation backbone of Canada.
8/17/2012 7:51:20 PM
BetterThunderBay says:
This illustrates how expensive highway infrastructure is, and the return on investment is pretty lousy. More roads don't alleviate congestion and they give us more surfaces to maintain.

Obviously, safety is very important and I hope this makes a difference. One of the main drivers for the program is jobs however, and they could do that a lot of ways.

I would like to see the province spend $42 million on bringing improved VIA rail back to Thunder Bay, giving us more and better local transportation options, or even just general infrastructure improvement in the city, (because even our existing stuff is pretty run down). Granted, there are lots of ways to spend $42 million.

Basically - I would be disappointed if we miss opportunities to be smart about our future because we're dumping money into paving the ground over, and over, and over.

I like to think we're pretty clever and resourceful, but there's a lot we can do better. We can certainly start by moving people more efficiently.
8/17/2012 7:51:23 PM
The Beaver..... says:
It shows the expertise and the total endeavor of the Contractor but is not necessarily the best way to go.Now a broke Ontario has to pay one year in advance of its Financing for this contract.Survey and Inspection crews under contract for an other year will have to be compensated,Concrete Suppliers and Paving sub Contractors had to change schedules to accommodate ...at a cost...early completion sounds good..and is good..but always at a price.
8/17/2012 9:05:41 PM
Marak says:
Great job and ahead of schedule, maybe some local contractors can follow that example!

How about we get 5 more done too so that now we can actually call our "expressway" an expressway without doubling over laughing...
8/17/2012 9:10:36 PM
sky high says:
I see these guys working like mad men everday on my way to and from work. The City of Thunder Bay should send their entire team to watch these guys work. Bet they'd get exhausted just observing them.
8/17/2012 9:14:35 PM
buzzerd says:
opp should be out enforcing the speed limit that's 20 or 30km to low.
8/17/2012 9:44:15 PM
bent pole hater says:
"For the first time in 17 years"

Such a sad statement.
8/17/2012 11:12:43 PM
mr skyline to you says:
Cant wait to read about how many people will be sliding into the concrete walls on the interchange come winter time & or hearing about someone drifting the entire corner, shouldnt be too long. For the drifting part that is :)
8/17/2012 11:16:18 PM
jb says:
Is that a major problem in every other Canadian city during the winter?
8/18/2012 11:55:19 AM
010665 says:
What a relief, now the 100 cars a day that travel that route have their very own massive interchange. Of course the 10,000 that clog up Arthur, Harbour and Red River Rd have those nice new curbs to keep traffic moving. The Thunder Bay express has very little express in it because of the clogged intersections every two miles. Fix those too please!
8/18/2012 2:05:33 AM
yqt says:
Hodder Ave AADT is about 7000 vehicles, not including the turning movements at that intersection; so your off by 6900+.

And the following, plus turning movements (2008):
Red River: 16 400
John: 18 200
Oliver: 19 400
Harbour: 22 200
Arthur: 17 300
8/19/2012 7:28:44 AM
Steven says:
Your numbers are misleading: Of those 7000, about 6700 are cars just passing by on the highway having nothing to do with hodder.

At all the other locations you mentioned, which BTW all have around 3 times the traffic volume, every last one of those cars was being stopped or affected by traffic lights.

010665's points stand, and your numbers back them up: Those other intersections are exponentially busier, more dangerous, and clogged with vehicles, while the one they chose to do was barely used.

Why on earth would you do the intersection with 1/3 the traffic going by? Only in Thunder Bay would you throw millions at the problem. Since when do you need a clover leaf to replace a stop sign? REALLY!?
If you're really that worried about the few cars/trucks turning on, widen the highway slightly there and add acceleration lanes in both directions allowing traffic to get to speed.

Someone got paid off to do this. That is the only reason I, and most other people, can see.
8/19/2012 11:46:51 AM
random says:
Provincial highway, Thunder Bay had nothing to do with why it was built there.
8/19/2012 12:16:05 PM
mikevirtanen1961 says:
The section between Balsam and Hodder is twinned, and the section past the Terry Fox monument will be twinned. Thus, the Hodder intersection must be twinned. The current intersection is on a hill with poor visibility. Measure the amount of time a car going 110km/h takes from the top of the hill to the intersection, and you have the amount of time a vehicle has to cross from Hodder to Copenhagen. Currently, there is just barely enough time to do it safely. However, once the highway is twinned, the distance is at least tripled and bad accidents start to happen.

We could close the intersection, but a detour adds 20-odd kilometers. We could cut down the hill, but that would cost almost as much as building an interchange. We could leave it untwinned, but it would be silly and dangerous to go from four divided lanes to two and back to four again.

Traffic is a red herring; the real reason for the interchange here is safety.
8/20/2012 1:07:33 PM
lori says:
so for the first time in 17 years a new stretch of four laning. Hmmmmmmmmmm

That doesn't quite fit with the "we are ignored", "we never get anything" type of postings so common from some of the usual government bashing positing we often see.

I liked one posting above.

Is it worth it? A very relevant question. Should we spend almost a billion dollars to have four lanes to Nipigon.

As for Via Rail. A federal issue and one not likely to come our way for years if not decades. This was a shortsighted decision many years ago. How great it would be to have an effective train system that is reliable and reasonably priced for this country. The size of the country and our weather unfortunately make it difficult.
8/18/2012 6:14:21 AM
TBDR says:
true... but that stretch was courtesy of the Mike Harris government you often complain about.
8/18/2012 4:05:03 PM
tsb says:
Actually it was a project that was started by the Rae government, as the first phase in a project to twin the entire expressway through the city and build interchanges at all of its main intersections, starting with Red River Road. The government even purchased the houses in the area and demolished them to make room (this is why Blucher Street ends the way it does, and the building left of that Shell Station, I think it was a Chinese take away, was demolished too). Mike Harris cancelled the entire project, just after he was elected. Around the same time the Balsam to Hodder stretch was completed. Harris also cancelled the Shabaqua Extension, which wasn't resumed until the Liberals were elected, albeit in a much less useful way.

Mike Harris' gifts to Thunder Bay are the half billion dollar hospital in the swamp, and forcing the city to maintain Dawson Road and Arthur Street even though they are provincial highways.
8/19/2012 1:54:57 AM
Mika says:
Actually, that tiny section from Balsam to the Current River built 17 years ago, was courtesy of Bob Rae and his NDP government...

When Harris and his common sense revolution came to power, all four laning around Thunder Bay stopped, as did much of anything else funded by the provincial government.

The highway to North Bay, however (which happens to be the riding of Mr. Harris) was fast tracked... and was four laned all the way to Toronto in record time, if I recall.
8/19/2012 10:27:59 AM
Common cents says:
ABC>>>>>>.........Patiently waits for the Dr's opinion........
8/19/2012 10:01:45 PM
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