4 March 2011
Work Should Start in May on
Delta Train Bridge in Cambridge
Cambridge Ontario - Frustrated motorists now see hard evidence that a new bridge will, finally,
end daily delays caused by trains shunting across Hespeler Road.
While on-site preparation for the $25 million Waterloo Region project started two years ago, with the relocation of a buried Union Gas main, it's only been in
the last month or so that continuous work was plainly visible.
Last fall, a church at Norfolk Avenue and Hespeler Road was expropriated and demolished. That gave room for utility workers to start stringing temporary wires
along new poles along both sides of the four-lane Hespeler Road, just north of the Delta intersection at Dundas Street.
Hydro lines, cable television, fibre-optic telephone, and internet cables are being pulled out of the way, to make way for a year and a half of construction.
On Tuesday, about 50 officials from companies interested in bidding on the complicated project met on site.
The gaggle of people in white hard hats and orange safety vests walked the tracks westward from Samuelson Street. They stopped at Hespeler Road to ask
questions of Stephenson and Canadian Pacific Railway officials.
Regional council will be asked to choose a winning bidder on the project 20 Apr 2011.
Heavy equipment could move in within weeks of the tender award, Stephenson said.
The first work is building a detour road to the west, through the Babcock & Wilcox Canada parking lot across the existing tracks. For the first year, half
of the new bridge will be built up, while a new, lowered section of railway tracks is built.
By May 2012, the new tracks and partial bridge should be open to traffic. Then the other half of the road bridge will be built and stitched onto the first half.
Once the contractor is chosen and the construction timeline confirmed, Stephenson said a neighbourhood meeting is planned to explain what's expected to unfold.
Residents may also be able to sign up for email updates on the project, he said.
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