THUNDER BAY – The Northwest Arterial Road project will work in tandem with the Thunder Bay Expressway Rehabilitation Project, according to Matthew Miedema, director of the city's engineering division.
“It's important to note that these two projects are definitely intertwined,” Miedema told Newswatch in an interview on Wednesday.
During a July 31 press conference with Premier Doug Ford, Thunder Bay–Atikokan MPP Kevin Holland fielded a question about the expressway.
Before the expressway is upgraded, the city has a requirement on the Northwest Arterial Road "that needs to be finished first,” Holland said.
The Northwest Arterial Road “is an important first step in the Thunder Bay Expressway work” but both projects will work collaboratively through the process, Miedema said.
The Northwest Arterial Road, particularly the section connecting Golf Links Road to John Street Road, would be needed at the beginning stages of the expressway upgrade because it will “help stage traffic” once the Ministry of Transportation starts construction, Miedema explained.
“It was always, from an early onset, designated as the preferred station route. So as (MTO) gets to the Red River Road intersection, they start cutting off traffic at John and Oliver, the Northwest Arterial Road is key for traffic staging, just to the sheer high volume of traffic on 11/17 and coming from the northwest part of the city,” Miedema said.
However, he said the $33-million project “won't go ahead until (they) know MTO is firm on their timelines as well.”
The MTO has completed its environmental assessment on the expressway, and last month council approved updating its environmental assessment for the Northwest Arterial Road, which will be publicly available in the coming weeks, according to Miedema.
The MTO informed Newswatch will be putting out a request for proposals for the detailed design assignment in September, which Miedema said is an approximately two-year process. He said the province will then need “higher orders of government approval before they proceed to the final construction stages.”
In the meantime, the city will be requesting proposals in 2026-2027 for detail design of the Northwest Arterial Road.
He noted construction timelines will be “based on alignment with the MTO work, which could be five years out.”
“There's still a process to go, I would consider, in the planning stages of these assignments. So that's why it's a five-year window (where) we could see maybe some action on things,” Miedema said.
The proposed Northwest Arterial Road is a four-kilometre-long connection between Dawson Road and Golf Links Road. The MTO's proposed upgrades would make Thunder Bay’s Expressway into a four-lane divided highway, replace traffic lights with interchanges at major intersections (including on-ramps at Arthur Street, Harbour Expressway, a future Northwest Arterial Road, Red River Road and Balsam Street) and eliminate highway access at John Street and Oliver Road.
