Traffic chaos in Oshawa continues as ancient bridge slowly comes down for GO train expansion

Piece by piece, the Simcoe Street bridge over the CP rail tracks is coming down.

A little quicker, please, says hopeful Oshawa residents, who have been using the ancient bridge (it is more than as century old) to get from downtown and parts north to Highway 401 (1947) and the General Motors plant (1953) for generations.

Simcoe Street, on either side of the bridge, has been closed since January and will be off limit to motorists for another 18 months while engineers contracted by Metrolinx replace the bridge with one wide enough to take trains to the new central Oshawa GO station immediately to the east that is almost-but-not-quite under construction.

Drivers dealing with the two-year closure of that section of Simcoe Street for GO train expansion are also facing additional road closures in the area to accommodate Highway 401 widening that is creating a traffic “nightmare,” Oshawa Councillor Brian Nicholson said last week, adding that his socials were being flooded with complaints from motorists trying to get around closures on Simcoe Street and other routes connecting people from downtown to Highway 401 and south Oshawa.

“Area residents are raising more and more complaints from increased traffic and reduced access due to the closures of Simcoe Street South and Cubert Street. Now they are facing a further closure of Park Road.”

The province is replacing the highway overpass structures at Park Road and Cubert Street, forcing the closure of Cubert – an important secondary road connecting Bloor Street to the residential neighbourhood to the north – and a section of Park – a major connection to the GM plant – until the fall of 2027.

The Ministry of Transportation (MTO), in a recent email to Oshawa councillors, said the work was originally scheduled for next year but has moved up, with Cubert Street now closed and Park – from Bloor Street to College Avenue – shut down to traffic July 13. A weekend closure of Park Road also happened June 27-28.

“The nightmare continues and neither MTO nor Metrolinx has any concern about how their decisions impact our city and its residents,” Nicholson said.

Another concurrent project happening in the area that is contributing to traffic headaches include the Wilson Road overpass replacement that has forced drivers to deal with the full closure of Wilson from Dieppe Avenue to Bloor Street until the late spring of 2027, also part of the highway widening program.

“I know that the closure decisions are out of the hands of the city, but we need to support area residents and press for solutions to the issues caused by the MTO and Metrolinx.”

Metrolinx, however, is satisfied with the progress made so far on building a new bridge over Simcoe Street, calling it “out with the old, in with the new.”

“This work will make way for a new and improved bridge that will support the next generation of GO service in Durham Region,” the provincial agency said in its monthly newsletter. “This is one of many major infrastructure upgrades happening across Durham Region, as part of the Bowmanville Extension. Demolition continues through the summer, making room for a new, modern bridge and a new rail line underneath.”