SASKATOON — The interchanges on McOrmond Drive and College Drive and at Boychuk Drive and Highway 16 in Saskatoon, Sask. are ready for a major construction milestone.
Fifty-six girders, concrete structures ranging between 29 and 38 metres in length that support the bridge deck, will first be placed over the westbound and eastbound lanes of College Drive at McOrmond Drive, starting on March 26. Work on the interchange began in April 2017.
“Installation at this site will take approximately three weeks. The girders were manufactured in Alberta. Once on site, a 250-tonne crane will immediately lift them into place,” said Bryan Zerebeski, project manager for the Saskatoon Interchange Project, in a statement.
Construction has also been underway on the Boychuk Drive and Highway 16 interchange since April 2017, and girders will be installed once installations at McOrmond and College are complete.
The Saskatoon Interchange Project, a bundling of the two interchanges into a single project, was undertaken because the surrounding neighbourhoods have experienced rapid development resulting in a rise in traffic volume, along with collisions and increased environmental damage, explains a release. Both interchanges will include three-metre-wide multi-use pathways to accommodate pedestrians and cyclists. It was determined by the City of Saskatoon that building the interchanges at the same time as a design-build package would result in cost savings.
PCL Construction Management Inc. was chosen through a procurement process to design and build both interchanges for approximately $56.6 million. The governments of Canada and Saskatchewan each contributed up to $10.9 million to the Boychuk Drive and Highway 16 interchange through the Provincial-Territorial Infrastructure Component – National and Regional Projects, and surrounding developers completely funded the McOrmond Drive and College Drive interchange.
Construction on the McOrmond interchange is estimated for completion by the fall of 2018, with completing of the Boychuk interchange by summer 2019.
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