The Victoria Day long weekend is officially behind us for the year, and while many consider that the unofficial beginning of summer, another sign of the season is upon Bradford residents — road reconstruction.
The heat, humidity and rain weren’t enough to stop crews from beginning work on the town’s project to resurface and reinforce Line 8 between County Road 4 (Yonge Street) and Sideroad 10, as well as Sideroad 10 between Line 8 and Reagens Industrial Parkway, on Tuesday, May 21.
Along several stretches of Line 8 traffic was reduced to one lane, with crews alternating the flow between opposite directions Tuesday afternoon, and the top layers of asphalt had already been removed in many sections.
That’s expected to be ground up, mixed with more asphalt and relaid before another whole layer of blacktop is added.
The process is expected to be less disruptive, and perhaps more importantly, faster than a complete reconstruction.
Crews only have about six weeks to complete work before the beginning of July, when the County of Simcoe is expected to begin its own work on County Road 4 at Line 10 for a culvert replacement ahead of road widening which could take about seven weeks and is expected to result in Line 8 being used as a detour.
That’s something town development and engineering director Peter Loukes felt the road might not be able to handle without first being resurfaced, according to his report to council in November.
In that same report, Loukes also explained that in the meantime, staff are still working to design updated options and diagrams for an expanded version of Line 8, with public consultations expected to take place later this year.
Based on that feedback, staff plan to provide a recommended design option for council’s approval.
Loukes estimated it would take until the end of 2024 to complete that work and submit an endorsed environmental assessment to the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) for approval, only after which can detailed design work begin.
That could happen in 2025, enabling construction to begin no earlier than 2026, according to Loukes.
In November, several councillors asked how much of the resurfacing work would need to be torn up and redone for the new design, but both Loukes and capital projects manager Katy Modaressi explained the stabilized portion will still be used, even if the road is expanded.
Work on the environmental assessment for an expanded Line 8 originally began in 2016, but was subsequently suspended in 2020.
According to a construction notice posted on the town’s website for the current resurfacing, garbage collection will continue as usual and there should be no disruption to school buses.
