Ontario targets 2026 start date for skyway twinning project in St. Catharines

Ontario revealed more details Friday on how it plans to twin the Garden City Skyway over the Welland Canal, targeting a starting construction date of 2026.

The project, first detailed in the spring of 2022, aims to ease gridlock between provincial border crossings and the Greater Golden Horseshoe.

A new 2.2-kilometre-long bridge would be built north of the existing thoroughfare and connect St. Catharines with Niagara-on-the-Lake.

An estimated 100,000 drivers and commercial vehicles use the current route every day.

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Minister of Infrastructure Kinga Surma characterized the project as a “critical corridor expansion” with an estimated $1 trillion worth of goods travelling over the current bridge annually.

“We have issued a request for proposals to five teams for the first phase of work, marking another milestone in our plan to keep goods and people moving across southwestern Ontario,” Surma revealed during a press conference in St. Catharines Friday morning.

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The province first began looking at the potential expansion of the skyway in 2010.

In 2020, the ministry unveiled the first elements of a twinning project after assessing the potential expropriation of properties and relocation of utilities.

The skyway twinning was part of the 2022 provincial budget in a $25.1-billion plan to better road, bridge and highway projects across Ontario over the next decade.

The twinning is expected to take about four years to complete and seeks to add a new four-lane bridge to handle Toronto-bound traffic, while the restored existing bridge will be for Niagara-bound vehicles.

Procurement and design is expected to begin in 2025, with construction starting the following year.

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