If you take Lakeshore Drive, be prepared for some traffic headaches over the next 10 months.
Repairs to the overpass will mean just one lane open in each direction to allow the final phase of the Lakeshore Drive Overpass Deck Replacement and Substructure Rehabilitation project.
The City is saying drivers should consider alternate routes and provide for extra travel time starting Tuesday, January 3, as crews begin.
That's easier said than done.
Despite years of promises by city politicians to open another access to the West Ferris area, nothing has been done and Memorial Drive, which is sometimes backed up by train traffic, remains the only second access.
West Ferris can be accessed by driving south on the Highway 11 bypass, but it will force motorists miles out of their way.
There has been no word from the city of changes to Memorial Drive to ease traffic flow. The speed limit there is 40 kph with a pair of traffic lights and a stop sign at the t-junction with Judge Ave. Traffic there already regularly backs up, as vehicles turning left onto Lakeshore from Judge block traffic trying to turn left off Memorial.
The City had an opportunity many years ago to extend Marshall Ave. to the then two-lane bypass, but didn't and when the province later four-laned it, the Marshall plan was deemed too expensive and the City couldn't talk the province into shouldering the cost because the roads weren't connected.
Tuesday, traffic will be reduced to a single lane in each direction until approximately October 2017, depending on weather and unforeseen circumstances.
