Night work coming next week for Ajax section of $1 billion Bus Rapid Transit line

Watermain construction on an Ajax section of the Durham-Scarborough Bus Rapid Transit project on Kingston Road will mean some nighttime construction next week.

The Region of Durham, which has taken over responsibility for the $1 billion project, is notifying locals that work will take place from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. from June 15-20, on a section of the route from Rotherglen Road to just west of Harwood Avenue.

Regular daytime work on Kingston Road will continue as scheduled. The $11 million section is expected to be complete by next summer.

The night work will occur at the intersection of Kingston Road and Rotherglen Road. Traffic will be reduced to one lane in each direction during the night work and police  will be there to direct traffic.

Bus routes, bus stops, sidewalks and businesses will remain open during regular operating hours for the duration of construction.

Construction of the second segment of Durham-Scarborough Bus Rapid Transit line (BRT) that will eventually take passengers on a 36-km route from Scarborough Town Centre to Oshawa got underway in April.

Progress has been slow since the BRT was first given the go-ahead 15 years ago, but the first phase of the project, from just west of Harwood Avenue to Galea Drive in Ajax, got underway in August. Work included the construction of dedicated median bus lanes, median transit stop platforms and shelters, road reconstruction, traffic signals with dedicated bus movements, in-boulevard cycle tracks with crossrides, sidewalks with accessibility improvements, watermain and sanitary sewer installation, street lighting and landscaping.

The anticipated completion of this section is also the summer of 2027.

Durham Region officials said in a new release they recognize there may be “potential impacts” during the work and will make “every effort” to complete the work as quickly and efficiently as possible. Drivers are asked to exercise caution for the safety of pedestrians, cyclists and work crews.

The project will also expand into Pickering this year, with construction planned for the section of the transit line from Steeple Hill to Merritton Road (currently in the pre-tender stage, with contract documents being finalized) and from Dixie Road to Bainbridge Drive – scheduled to advance into tender once the first package moves forward.

Those two sections carry an estimated cost of $11 million and $28 million, respectively.

Construction timing is still to be determined for Altona Road to Steeple Hill and from Merritton Road to Dixie Road in Pickering and from Bainbridge Drive to Notion Road at the Ajax border.

The Durham-Scarborough BRT project is expected to create seamless connections with local transit networks along the high-demand Highway 2-Ellesmere corridor, providing residents of Durham Region and Toronto more flexibility to get where they need to go faster.

The need for such a transit service is urgent, with 43,000 new residents and 26,000 new jobs expected within a ten-minute walk of the corridor over the next couple of decades.

High-traffic segments on the west side of Durham’s portion have already got funding in place through the Canada Infrastructure Program and are part of the first phase, starting with the $12 million Harwood-to-Galea section.

Spur lines to Durham College/Ontario Tech University from the Oshawa Central GO station are also in the works.

The current end point for the dedicated rapid bus line that will travel from Scarborough Town Centre through Pickering, Ajax and Whitby and into Oshawa on the Highway 2 corridor, is downtown Oshawa, with connections to the new Central Oshawa GO station coming to the old Knob Hill Farms site.

Bus Rapid Transit, or BRT, is transit infrastructure and service with buses running in their own exclusive right-of-way. The buses are fully separated from traffic with longer spacing between stops than regular bus routes to maintain higher average speeds and ensure reliability of the service.

The BRT will provide riders frequent five-minute service during peak service by 2030, along with 10-to-30-minute service during off-peak times, saving 20 minutes commute time along the corridor.

To view a live interactive map of current construction projects and up-to-date traffic information visit durham.ca/TrafficWatch.