After a busy construction season, 2 key projects will wrap next year

For the past year, much of downtown London has resembled an obstacle course with multiple detours, long rows of construction cones, road closures and missing sidewalks. 

And while the extensive roadwork continues to confound anyone who's had to travel through downtown, a City of London engineer said all the aggravation will be worth it to prepare the Forest City for a future of rapid growth. 

"It was an ambitious program for this year," said Jennie Dann, the city's director of construction and infrastructure. "London is one of Canada's fastest-growing cities. We need to do this work to keep pace with our growing population and make sure people can get to work and home and everything in between." 

This year the city tendered out more than $200 million in construction work. It's a figure that doesn't include the value of projects underway now but ones tendered in previous years. 

Here's an update on the status and completion dates of some of London's major construction work.

Adelaide Street railway underpass 

This is the big project designed to end London's train pain at the Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) railway crossing on Adelaide Street. 

Originally tendered out at just over $58 million back in 2018, the cost of building the four-lane underpass has crept up to $87 million, according to a city report that came to council last year. 

The new railway bridge is already in use and excavation work to route four lanes of traffic beneath the rail line is largely complete.

For now, drivers are using a temporary two-lane road which still, sadly, has a railway crossing. Dann said she expects vehicle traffic to start flowing under the new overpass by summer. 

"It's really starting to look like an underpass now," said Dann. "The great weather in September helped us get ahead on some of the major excavating work."

Drivers will see asphalt laid down soon but shouldn't get too excited just yet. It's just a temporary surface to keep construction vehicles out of the mud while work continues.

Victoria bridge replacement

An essential link between Old South and downtown along Ridout Street, the Victoria Bridge could start carrying traffic over the Thames River by spring. 

The bridge's concrete deck was poured last month, a job that required 40 truckloads of concrete.

For now, cyclists and pedestrians can get across the river using a temporary bridge that spans the river between Thames Park and the Ridout/Horton Street intersection. 

Wellington Gateway BRT 

The project to bring bus rapid transit (BRT) along Wellington Street south of downtown will stretch until 2027. This year's work stage knocked traffic flow on Wellington Street down to two lanes between King Street and just north of the Thames River.

It's been a struggle for drivers to negotiate the bottleneck, in particular at the Wellington/York Street intersection, where new sidewalks are going down. Dann said they're hoping to get both sides of Wellington between Queens Avenue and just north of the Thames River open to traffic before Christmas. 

As the work continues south along Wellington Street in the project's future stages, at least two lanes of traffic will be kept open. 

East Link BRT

This rapid bus route will link downtown with Old East Village and Fanshawe College. Londoners will have noticed the arrival of red paint to mark the new bus stops along King Street between Wellington and Lyle Streets.

Dann said a London Transit route will start using the new bus lanes in the coming weeks. 

The entire East London Link is set for completion in 2026, with rapid bus service to start in 2027. 

"As we start to move RTs further away from the core, I think that's going to help people feel a little less constrained by the traffic impact from construction," Dann said. 

Richmond Street and Fanshawe Park Road intersection

This is a two-year project that started in 2023. The west side of Richmond Street is being paved now, with hopes to get it surfaced before the busy shopping season. Finishing work on Richmond Street will continue into early next year before the intersection work shifts focus to Fanshawe Park Road.