Lane closures along the Trans-Canada Highway between the Leigh Road Interchange and the West Shore Parkway start Sunday night as an upgrade project gets underway.
Daily and nightly lane closures will continue through 2020 as the highway is widened from three lanes to four lanes, starting at Leigh Road, for two kilometres. The additional lane will continue through the West Shore Parkway intersection, with the northbound merge relocated to the Goldstream Park side of the signal.
A concrete median barrier is also being added for 1.2 kilometres to separate opposing lanes of traffic.
From Monday to Friday during construction, there will be no southbound lane closures or stoppages between 5:30 a.m. and 9 a.m.
Also from Monday to Friday, there will be no northbound closures or stoppages between 2:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. Northbound traffic will continue to merge into one lane at the Leigh Road interchange as normal.
Outside of those peak traffic periods, drivers can expect a southbound lane closure and a northbound crossover. There will be periodic short stops daily between 9 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. and nightly between 6 p.m. and 5:30 a.m. The stops will be for tree clearing and soil remove to prepare the site for rock blasting, which is expected to begin in November.
Drivers should expect delays of up to 20 minutes. Officials are reminding drivers to follow the directions of traffic control workers and obey the construction speed zone limit of 60 kilometres an hour.
At this time, no construction is planned from Friday afternoon through Sunday evening. But the Ministry of Transportation says as construction continues, there may be periods of weekend construction that will require lane closures and periodic stoppages.
Windley Contracting of Nanaimo has been awarded a $9.7-million contract for the work. The federal government is providing up to $4.75 million for the Highway 1 Leigh Road to West Shore Parkway project and the province is funding the remainder. Completion of the project is expected in summer 2021.
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