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At a casual glance, the $27-million 1.7-kilometre road widening of Victoria Street in Whitby, Ont. might seem fairly straightforward. It’s anything but.
Scheduled to enter its second phase in a few months and take until 2018 to complete, it’s an undertaking that includes the creation of a new wetland, the extension of a pond with the use of scuba divers to search for species at risk, the building of four wildlife passages and strict construction guidelines for the contractor.
In fact, Ron Trewin, project manager of Durham Region’s transportation design division, describes it as the "most environmentally complex road project the region has ever undertaken."
The existing two-lane street is actually part of Regional Road 22, which includes Bayly Street in Pickering and Ajax to the west and Bloor Street in the city of Oshawa to the east.
It’s the only continuous road south of Highway 401 that provides connectivity between and within those municipalities and it has to be widened to support the growth that is occurring in those municipalities, Trewin says. The Bayly Street section has already been widened.
But the existing two-lane Victoria Street extends through a portion of the Lynde Creek Coastal Wetland Complex, a provincially significant wetland that makes up a large part of the Lynde Shores Conservation Area and extends all the way from Lake Ontario to Highway 401.
"The wetland is home or is potentially home to various endangered, threatened and species of interest," Trewin states.
To protect it, extensive consultation, study and mitigation planning was conducted as part of the environmental assessment, with further work completed by consulting engineer AECOM during the detailed design.
A series of protective measures have and will be implemented to compensate for the impact the project will have, especially on a pond north of Victoria Street which is in the path of the construction area.
Last September fish were removed and relocated. In addition, scuba divers and a biologist searched the pond for the Eastern Pondmussel which is protected under the Species at Risk Act. Although none were found, the hope is that new wildlife passages will allow the mussel to re-establish in the area, says Trewin.
In March, the pond was expanded by approximately 0.05 hectares to the north as part of the preliminary construction phase which involved relocating utilities, tree removal and the building of a temporary path for the Waterfront Trail by Dagmar Construction Inc.
Also that month the contractor began erecting a sheeting retaining wall on the north side of Victoria Street. Intended to prevent encroachment into the marsh, the wall should be completed by September, says Trewin.
Later this fall the region will issue a tender for the second phase that will include a series of tasks such as the construction of a new 28-metre-long concrete bridge with pre-stressed beams over Lynde Creek. Some of the supporting piles are already in place.
"We’re building mainly to the north," says Trewin, explaining that approximately 60 per cent of the structure will be constructed this winter and next spring. Once completed, traffic will be moved to the north side and the existing bridge will be demolished and replaced.
The same phasing will be used to erect a new 10-metre-long bridge that will replace three box culverts over the West Lynde Creek tributary. Both bridges will be wide enough to provide wildlife passage, as will two new box culverts.
"Wildlife casualties are currently very high on the existing Victoria Street," says Trewin, stressing the importance of the passages.
When construction does get underway, a number of safeguards will put in place to protect fish and wildlife from wandering into the construction zone, he adds. This will include the erection of a barrier and a silt fence along the entire route and the positioning of turbidity curtains to stop fish movement.
Those physical actions will be enhanced by frequent inspections by a consultant biologist and the construction administration staff.
A major tender stipulation is that all construction personnel will have to be trained to recognize and understand what is required to protect wildlife, Trewin says.
Another component of the project will be the creation of a 1.4-hectare wetland south of Victoria Street to compensate for the loss of other wetland areas.
Although this will occur sometime within the next year, the region hasn’t determined if this scope of work will be included in the soon-to-be-issued tender or will be an entirely separate contract, says Trewin.
In addition to widening Victoria Street to four lanes, the region will also be constructing a key permanent section of the Waterfront Trail along the marsh adjacent the street in conjunction with the Town of Whitby.
"This part of the project is extremely important so that trail users can safely enjoy travelling through the wetland complex area," says Trewin.
Key partners have been the town, the Central Lake Ontario Conservation Authority, the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, he says.
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