A little more than a year after the $22.5 million funding announcement for the West Shore Parkway project, construction work remains both on time and on budget, according to Michelle Mahovlich, Langford’s director of engineering.
Work is ongoing at the southern end of the route, with construction on Segment 1 and 2 slated for completion in September of this year.
“[Segment 1] is going to be a new signal light and turning lanes on Sooke Road that lead to and from the West Shore Parkway,” Mahovlich said. “The lights will only be activated for the purpose of construction vehicle access so for the most part they’ll stay green all the time on Sooke Road and then when the West Shore Parkway is fully activated, then they would become a proper signal.”
Mahovlich has received some concerns from residents over how the signal would affect traffic flow, but she was quick to point out that contemporary signals can adapt to high traffic times to ensure commuter time isn’t impacted significantly.
Blasting work on Segments 3 and 4 has just begun, with a goal of an August 2017 completion date for those two sections. This would allow the city to open the first four segments of the road at that time.
Segment 5 has already been completed, while Segments 6, 7 and 9 will be tendered in September.
Segment 6 goes over the railway tracks and the crossing is still under design with Southern Rail.
“Once they get the railway design in, we’ll be tendering this project in August,” Mahovlich said, adding that construction completion would depend on how long it takes to order the rail arms. The current estimate for completion of the entire project is for the spring of 2018.
Last week, crews began work to add an extra left turning lane for the parkway on the Trans-Canada Highway (Segment 8) while also doing some clearing and grubbing work on behalf of the Ministry of Transportation for when the Province adds an extra through lane on that section of the highway.
Mahovlich was quick to praise the work for the collaborative design and value engineering that has been undertaken by the team of consultants on the project.
“All of [them] are working together to keep the project on time and on budget,” she said.