Highway 401 Widening - Highway 8 to Townline Road

[Canard]

Between this project and the Weber St. Underpass, the Region is having a great run of high-speed construction projects lately! Let's hope it's a sign of things to come for ION as well.

[The85]

Looks like the Fountain Street bridge will close tomorrow and be demolished the first weekend of May.

The MTO is predicting the new bridge will be complete by mid October. Impressive that a new bridge over the 401 can be built in about 6 months!

News story in the Cambridge Times here: http://www.cambridgetimes.ca/news-story/...-tomorrow/ 

[jamincan]

Check out how they have been doing it along the Queensway in Ottawa:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veLp4MrljEM

[BuildingScout]

Was that any faster than the Margaret St. replacement? I couldn't tell.

[Spokes]

Very cool time lapse video of the demolition of the Fountain Street bridge over the 401.

[Canard]

Cool video! Excellent footage. I only wish I knew who did the demolition work.

[MacBerry]

Cool video! Excellent footage. I only wish I knew who did the demolition work.

The demolition was done by Priestly Demolition out of King, Ontario (we used to call it King City).

Priestly Demolition

[Canard]

I was joking. watch the video. 50% of it is their logo.

[MacBerry]

I was joking. watch the video. 50% of it is their logo.

Will read more carefully between the lines as I missed the sarcasm .. my bad! 

[Markster]

At the Planning and Works meeting yesterday (video), there was an update.
Fountain street replacement is expected to be open in late fall.
They've awarded the contract for the 401 widening to 10 lanes. It will take place over the next 4 years.
Work begins next month, on widening the CN rail and Speed River bridges, constructing the new outer eastbound and westbound lanes, and rehabbing the southbound Hespeler bridge.

[DHLawrence]

Are they going to ten lanes in one go or are they going to eight with ten down the road?

[Markster]

Right to 10 lanes. The MTO doesn't go half-way with highway widenings, even when sometimes they arguably should.
I expect it be:
10 lanes from the highway 8 junction, where the 4 lanes of highway 8 merely merge up with the 6 lanes of the 401,
1 lane each way will likely (exit to/enter from) Hespeler, and
the remaining lanes will merge into the 401 just east of Hespeler

There's preliminary planning going on to extend the 10 lanes to Townline Rd, but that's not in the near-term funding scope.

[Canard]

When will we see more lanes? I drive this every day and it drives me nuts at how bad it doesn't flow in this section. I go in early and come home early or late to avoid it.

[Waterlooer]

I thought they were expanding it all the way into Mississauga with the 2 inner lanes being HOV lanes.

[DHLawrence]

Are the outer two lanes going to be bus only lanes, or will it be ten lanes plus bus bypass shoulders?