5 September 2006

Fixing The 402

The following article is excerpted from the 1 September 2006 issue of “The Bar-Code Border”.

Highway 402 is being rebuilt in a section leading to the Blue Water Bridge… at Sarnia, Ontario. Construction work has begun … in a C$44 million project cost-shared by the governments of Canada and Ontario, on a 12-kilometre (7.5 miles) stretch, in order to improve traffic flow.

The work is part of a C$323 million plan to reduce congestion at Canada– United States border crossings between Ontario and Michigan and New York states.

This project includes repairing five bridges, rebuilding lanes, providing new lighting and upgraded highway signs, and creating a new commercial vehicle inspection facility in the section between Interchanges 15 and 25. It joins several other projects leading to the Blue Water Bridge including rebuilding more of Highway 402 and widening Highway 401 leading to 402 form four to six lanes, all completed or underway. In the plan are further widenings, and improvements to the approaches to the Bridge.

For crossings into New York State from Ontario, in the Niagara region, a fifth lane on the Queenston-Lewiston Bridge has been completed as well as an express truck lane linking the Queen Elizabeth Way to the Bridge. Other work is underway to widen the QEW from four to siz lanes in two lengthy sections, and on improvements to the Peace Bridge….

In addition, the two governments are spending $285 million on a five-phase widening of highway 401 leading to the Windsor-Detroit border crossing. The first two are completed, the third is underway, the fourth is in the design phase, and the design for the fifth is pending.