More than 4 years behind schedule, $58.9M stretch of Team Gushue Highway set to open
Kenmount-Topsail connection expected to open in late November, with Phase 3 still in the planning stages
In the coming weeks, Phase 2 of the Team Gushue Highway will be complete, linking Kenmount Road to Topsail Road.
The entire project — announced in 2006 after Brad Gushue of St. John's and his curling rink won an Olympic gold medal in Turin, Italy — was initially projected to be completed by 2014. Now, Phase 2 is expected to be opened by the second half of November with Phase 3 still in the planning stages, according to Transportation Minister Steve Crocker.
"It's a substantial construction project. You'll see by the numerous overhead structures, and when you look at building overpasses ... it takes, in most cases, two to three years to complete these major concrete structures," Crocker told CBC News.
The cost of the highway from the Outer Ring Road to Kenmount Road was $11.6 million, split evenly between the provincial and federal governments at 50 per cent each.
The cost of the highway from Kenmount to Topsail Road is $58.9 million, with the federal government contributing $22.5 million and the provincial government covering the rest.
The Department of Transportation pegs the total cost of the construction of the Team Gushue Highway from the Outer Ring Road to Topsail Road at $70.5 million.
Displacing traffic
There's still a lot of finishing work to be completed before an exact opening date can be provided, said Crocker, but the section of highway is very close to being completed.
"You can probably get from Kenmount Road to Topsail Road in two to three minutes doing to the speed limit," said St. John's Coun. Jamie Korab, a member of the highway's gold-medal-winning namesake.
"It is going to take cars off Columbus Drive, it's going to take cars off Kenmount Road, it really will move cars. And, I believe the figure I heard before there could be somewhere between 20,000 and 22,000 cars drive this daily."
The Brier
The Brier will get its own piece of real estate on the Team Gushue Highway, lending its name to a new avenue that will be an offshoot of the bypass.
The Gushue rink won the the annual Canadian men's curling championship in St. John's in 2017, and although Korab wasn't a part of that squad, he says it's a fitting name to be part of the cross-city highway project honouring Gushue and his squads.
With files from On the Go