Expect delays with next phase in Rapids Parkway extension construction, Sarnia manager says

Exmouth Street is getting smoothed out this summer.

A hill where the roadway intersects with the Howard Watson nature trail obscures sight lines, so the street there is being lowered about 50 centimeters (20-inches), said city construction manager Rob Williams.

Doing that will require the street to close for about a month as part of a larger, nearly $3 million project that’s the next step in extending the Rapids Parkway underneath Highway 402, connecting it with Exmouth Street — planning has been in the works since the 1990s , city officials have said — and shifting the trail west.

Sarnia city council recently awarded the project to Van Bree Drainage and Bulldozing.

Along with the elevation change for Exmouth Street, it also includes running a new forcemain via horizontal drilling between Lambton Mall’s northeastern parking lot and the trail, building a roundabout at Quinn Drive, constructing the Rapids Parkway between Exmouth Street and just north of Quinn Drive, adding a traffic signal at the Exmouth Street and the Rapids Parkway intersection, and shifting the trail, Williams said.

Work is expected to start in July and continue until late fall, he said, noting there’ll be just lane closures for the forcemain work.

The trail will need to be closed for construction, he said, but noted the city is trying to figure out detours for trail users.

With a large amount of roadwork elsewhere in the city too, expect a lot of disruption on city roads this summer, Williams said.

“But I think, in the end, it will cause some relief to that area,” he said about the Rapids extension project.

“I think it will improve the movement at the Lambton Mall Road and Exmouth Street intersection” with another option for traffic to get to Quinn Drive, he said.

“But the real improvement will be when Rapids goes right under the 402.”

For that, people will have to wait for a Transportation Ministry project to rehabilitate the overpass.

The last 250 meters of the Rapids Parkway construction, as well as changing the grading underneath the overpass to leave room for an asphalt trail and a sidewalk, will be contracted and completed as part of the MTO project, he said.

“It’ll be more of a straight, vertical wall,” he said about the plan for retaining walls under the bridge.

The city will pay for that work, while the province will pay for the overpass rehabilitation costs, he said.

Waiting for the MTO’s bridge rehabilitation work has long been part of the Rapids extension plan, so a new roadway isn’t built then damaged, city officials have said.

It also make sense administratively to combine the projects, Williams said, noting similar MTO-City of Sarnia collaboration has been happening for other projects, like a Confederation Road trail project that abuts planned ministry work on Highway 40.

To date, including $3.5-million in water and sewer work completed in 2021, a $2.2-million contract to extend Rapids Parkway south as far as the overpass in 2022and the recently awarded Van Bree contract, spending on the project is closing in on the estimated $9.3-million estimated total, Williams said.

“We’re going to probably need to budget additional funds for 2024,” when the final phase is expected to begin, he said, noting initially plans were to start that work this year, but there was a delay.

There’s some landscaping work still remaining as part of the $2.2-million contract awarded last year to McNally Excavating Inc., he said.

“Last year we were a little low on fill,” he said.