An artist's rendering of the railway overpass in Cambridge - Date/Artist unknown.

10 May 2012

Hespeler Road Railway Bridge 2 Months Away from Opening in Cambridge

Cambridge Ontario - Two months to go before trains won't back up traffic every day on Hespeler Road in Cambridge.
 
Middle July remains the target to open the first phase of a $25-million bridge over the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks immediately north of the busy Delta intersection.
 
Work started a year ago. A warm, dry, winter kept the bridge work on budget. Work is also slightly ahead of schedule, but that doesn't mean motorists will get to use it any earlier than originally planned, said John Stephenson, the Waterloo Region road engineer overseeing the job.
 
Asphalt for the east half of the bridge is going in this week. Work on the intersection of Hespeler and Brooklyne roads should be done by Friday, it's been closed since early April.
 
Stephenson knows the nearly complete bridge is tantalizing to passing motorists stuck in traffic alongside it.
 
"What you're not seeing now is how many people are down under there getting the rail corridor open, putting ballast in place, putting in the ties, the tracks," he said.
 
Canadian Pacific railway crews should have new tracks ready by the end of June, weather permitting.
 
There's a week in July when trains loaded with cars from the Toyota factory won't be on the tracks. That's when the new lower tracks will be completed and the last gap in the road bridge filled and paved over the old tracks, he said.
 
When that's done, two lanes traffic in each direction will be able to cross over the new bridge. The remaining western third of the bridge goes atop today's detour lanes, stitched to the eastern two-thirds.
 
The bridge is expected to be essentially done by the end of October. The top coat of asphalt is planned in 2013.
 
When the bridge is done, Hespeler Road will look pretty well like it did before. A curb-tall concrete median will separate opposing traffic, as before.
 
There was no room to add bicycle lanes along the sidewalks, Stephenson said.
 
"We were literally inch-tight on this one, with all the property constraints," he said.
 
Author unknown.