Posts: 441
Threads: 1
Joined: Dec 2014
Reputation:
39
I’ve come to accept that highway 7 is just going to go the way of highway 6 from Morriston to the 403. A road where every time I drive it, I think to myself:
“Every section of this road is absolutely terrible. It’s terrible in town. It’s terrible in a long single file line. It’s terrible with cars racing and jockeying for position when it’s 5 lanes. It’s terrible when you have to turn left/right on it.”
Luckily I don’t have to drive highway 7 regularly or at the worst times. But it’s got just such a terrible future and there are zero plans to make it better.
Posts: 918
Threads: 32
Joined: Apr 2019
Reputation:
228
The bridge demo went really smooth tonight, it would not be surprising if the expressway opens early, unsurprisingly PDI is the demo contractor (it was either going to be them or York1).
They closed the highway at 10pm, by 2:30am the bridge was gone save for the bottom half of the columns which were buried in the rubble pile.
At about 3:30am they started moving rubble to the grass section between the Edna ramps.
At 4:15am they took a coffee break and started back up at 4:30.
By 6:30 they were starting to remove the protective sand in the northbound collectors to prep it for street sweeping.
In total they have 3 rock trucks, 3 front end loaders that are PDIs and 10 excavators from a variety of manufacturers (Volvo, Komatsu, Case, CAT). There's a couple machines that are Limen's (GC) and there's a few front end loaders that may be PDIs but I couldn't get close enough to tell. The largest excavator they had is a CAT 374F, generally used in mining or large site grading projects, just for a comparison on how large that machine is you have to take it apart to transport it legally down the highway. The largest you tend to see on road reconstructions are CAT 336s (or equivalent) you can see bigger machines but it isn't all that common.
I had to leave around 6:30 am due to prior commitments so I didn't see them finish but I did get some pictures, they're the best I could get without going into fenced off areas and the fact it was dark, but I'll post them once I sleep a little.
Posts: 152
Threads: 0
Joined: Jan 2022
Reputation:
26
Thanks for sharing these! It's nice that they were able to finish the demo work within the scheduled time.
Posts: 1,844
Threads: 3
Joined: Oct 2014
Reputation:
162
Awesome pics , thanks for posting
Posts: 918
Threads: 32
Joined: Apr 2019
Reputation:
228
The Province has begun early works for the Grand River Bridges through the 2023-3045 contract, issued to Kiewit. They're clearing land that will allow for advanced grading operations to occur. This allows for some additional geotechnical work to occur for the bridges, that geotech work was delayed for various reasons that I'm not at liberty to discuss. The bridges themselves are however close to having the design and construction contract completed (pending things like the remaining geotech work).
Kiewit has a site office set up off of Shirley and have already cleared significant portions of land down around the Walter Bean Trail.
Posts: 10,836
Threads: 67
Joined: Sep 2014
Reputation:
392
There will be multiple new bridges across the Grand River?
Posts: 459
Threads: 1
Joined: Aug 2014
Reputation:
64
And you know that for a fact?
Separated bike and pedestrian lanes are being built on the Frederick street bridge.
Posts: 2,506
Threads: 9
Joined: Aug 2014
Reputation:
74
The reports all refer to "Grand River Bridges," yes because there will be one bridge for eastbound lanes, one for westbound.
No, there is no plan for a sidewalk or bike lanes on those Grand River Bridges, and no separate bridge for same that I have ever seen. It's easy to see why Frederick Street would be in a lot more need for that kind of infrastructure.
