Work is well underway on Highway 17 between Corbeil and Bonfield. PHOTO by: Jazz Mathon
Expect plenty of activity along Highway 17 East, between Corbeil and Bonfield, over the next two summers.
“This is ongoing rehabilitation that typically takes place every 15 years. This time we are also removing rock cuts in order to allow us to extend the passing lanes and improve drainage,” shared Ministry of Transportation spokesman, Gordan Rennie.
Work also includes culvert replacement and paving over a 13 kilometer stretch.
Aecon Construction is the contractor for the 15 million dollar project. The federal government is cost-sharing with the province on this project, through the Building Canada Fund. Work will shut down over the winter and is expected to be completed in November 2015.
Four Laning Future
Meanwhile the planning stage of the four lane highway between North Bay and Mattawa is complete. The MTO is now waiting for the results of an environmental assessment for the plan route in order to proceed to the next step.
See detailed maps and information of the highway: http://highway17routeplanning.ca/highway17routeplanning/index.html
On Tuesday evening, a final public information session took place at the Mattawa Arena, regarding the four lane bypass planned for the area. Many land owners who live close to the Mattawa River are worried their properties could be divided.
“Now that we’re not going to have railway there, we can start looking at building something on the Ottawa River and we own to the Ottawa River, but them putting up a four lane there we won’t have access unless you go down the water,” shares Brenda Kelly.
MMM group is the engineering firm hired to map out the new highway. It made a brief presentation before Mattawa town council on Monday, looking for more insight on council’s future vision on its development plans for the area.
“We’ll be open minded and trying to do the right thing, getting their input and getting more information from the town and township on what their plans are along that waterfront so we can make our decisions based on that,” says senior project manager Neil Ahmed.
He says previous thinking was to just bypass communities, now the goal is to minimize the impact of towns along the Trans Canada. “We try to find a balance of bypassing the town so we provide better traffic access, so we are trying to keep the highway fairly close, sometimes we get better visibility from the new highway of the town, features as well as easy access for industry and commercial activities, that sort of thing.”
While the proposed four laning is more than twenty years down the road, MMM group says work behind the scenes is ramping up.
“We’re trying the make decisions now so that the town and municipalities can all plan towards, so that it is something done over time, but the planning has to be done early.”
