Traffic delays and detours as major work begins on $40-million Mississauga bridge
Published September 25, 2023 at 10:22 am
A section of a busy road in Mississauga’s north end will be shut down for the next year or so starting this Wednesday when major construction work begins on a long-awaited bridge that’s expected to significantly reduce heavy traffic in the area.
After decades of delays, work on the $40-million Goreway Bridge, to be built over CN train tracks in the Malton area of the city, actually got underway a few weeks ago with the installation of the storm sewer along the tracks, Mississauga Ward 5 Councillor Carolyn Parrish said in an earlier social media post.
The main part of the massive job begins on Sept. 27 when the busy Goreway Drive crossing will shut down to traffic to allow for construction, Parrish wrote in a post to X (formerly Twitter) on Monday morning.
“As agreed to by public consultation, the Goreway (Drive) crossing will be closed to cars and detours will be in place so construction can be completed in half the usual time,” she said in the post.
Construction of the new bridge will take more than a year and it’s expected to open to traffic in December 2024.
“Long overdue and greatly needed by the community,” one resident wrote in response to Parrish’s earlier post.
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The councillor said her community has been waiting three decades for the bridge to be built. It’s expected to greatly reduce traffic congestion that has plagued the Malton area of Mississauga for decades.
Goreway Drive functions as a major collector roadway in Mississauga that “provides north-south connectivity for commuter, commercial and emergency services vehicles between (Mississauga and Brampton),” project officials said earlier.
The major route crosses the CN tracks some 300 metres north of Brandon Gate Drive in Mississauga.
More than 50 freight trains per day use the three east-west tracks, and often caused traffic to back up on Goreway Drive.
Final contracts for the Goreway Bridge were signed on May 11. The contract for the project was awarded to Alliance Verdi Civil Inc., of Bolton, and external consultants have been hired to manage the undertaking.
Some three decades in the works, plans to build the Goreway Bridge took a big step forward this past spring with the signing of a three-way agreement between CN Rail and the cities of Mississauga and Brampton.
Cost of the bridge is upwards of $40 million and will be split among the three partners.
The project is dubbed the Goreway Drive Grade Separation (over the CN tracks). It has stalled over the years for myriad reasons, chief among them some initial mystery as to who owned the land in question.
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