Staff Report #5
April 24, 2019
To All Commissioners
Re: 2019 Road Construction Update
Recommendation
The report be NOTED and FILED.
Background
At the March 27, 2019 meeting, Staff Report #13 set out the top 14 major construction projects the City of London will be undertaking during the 2019 construction season. As was noted, a number of the projects have significant impacts on transit service and require extensive detours or will result in significant delays for transit service.
Detours
LTC administration has been working closely with civic administration, attending weekly meetings as well as the specific contractors on each project to ensure regular communication regarding the status of the projects in an effort to mitigate the impact of construction on service and ridership by allowing buses to operate in work zones where it is deemed safe to do so.
LTC administration has developed and implemented a communications strategy with respect to service interruptions in an effort to ensure passengers and Operators are aware of the detours with as much advance notice as possible, including stop level notifications of upcoming closures, website and Infoweb alerts, Twitter and internal Marlin postings.
Wilton Grove Road
Construction on Wilton Grove has progressed to Phase II between Highbury and Commerce Drive however, Phase I of the work (Hubrey to Highbury) has not been reopened to traffic and as a result Route 30 continues to be detoured at Wilton Grove and Hubrey. This results in no service to the east end of the route along Commerce, Max Brose and Cheese Factory Road. At this time the construction is scheduled to be completed for the end of May.
In addition, road work is scheduled on Pond Mills Road between Buchanan and Enterprise during the 2019 construction season in six month intervals for approximately three years. London Transit administration has been working with Civic administration to ensure this work is coordinated to start after Wilton Grove is reopened as another significant detour will be required on Route 30.
King Street Cycle Track
Work on the King Street Cycle track began on Monday April 8, 2019. The work is not anticipated to require detours on any of the routes; however temporary relocations of bus stops may be required during the installation of the transit islands. Additionally, with the current construction on York and Dundas all eastbound vehicle traffic is utilizing King Street which is resulting in delays on 12 routes in this area. The construction on the cycle track is scheduled to be completed by April 30, 2019.
Oxford Street
At time of report writing, work on Oxford Street between Platts Lane and Capulet was scheduled to begin on April 23, 2019 and continue until June 18, 2019. It is not currently anticipated that detours will be required, however temporary stop closures will occur throughout the project and significant delays are expected.
Devonshire/Cathcart
Construction on Cathcart started on April 8, 2019 and is scheduled to be completed on September 27, 2019. The road work requires Route 15 to detour onto Edward. The impacts have been minimal to date and have not resulted in any additional schedule adherence delays.
Recommended by:
Shawn Wilson, Director of Operations
Katie Burns, Director of Planning
Concurred in by:
Kelly S. Paleczny, General Manager