Officials with the city, county and province think Windsor’s going to get bigger and wealthier, so they’ve come up with a road expansion plan to handle it.
Engineers, city planners and others involved in the project have unveiled the environmental assessment study for an ambitious proposal to extend and expand Lauzon Parkway and County Road 42. They’re proposing bigger and better north-south and east-west arteries to handle healthy employment projections and new subdivisions expected to be built in what is currently farmland near the airport.
The vision is a grand one and comes with a matching price tag — an estimated $170 million in construction costs. But City of Windsor manager of planning policy Michael Cooke said the project is necessary to keep trucks off city streets, improve connections with E.C. Row and Highway 401 and prevent congestion from getting out of hand.
“We’re optimistic that over the long-term, the economic downturn that kind of hit everywhere in North America in the mid-2000s will turn around and allow us to experience more in the way of employment growth and population growth that comes with it,” Cooke said. “It would be supporting the existing neighbourhoods at the same time as our needs expand for additional land.”
The proposed extension would expand and extend Lauzon Parkway to Highway 3 and expand County Road 42 to four lanes from Walker Road to Puce Road in Lakeshore. The project would also add a new Lauzon Parkway interchange with Highway 401.
The plan looks far into the future, projecting completion of the first phase for 2021 with others extending to 2031. By that time, the report estimates the City of Windsor’s population will have grown by 30,500 residents, paying their bills by working at 11,400 new jobs.
That may seem pretty rosy for a city that was one of just two urban areas in Canada to lose population between the last two census counts and is still hurting from the recession. The projection is optimistic, Cooke said, but there’s evidence to support it, including the construction of the Herb Gray Parkway which will eventually link to a new border bridge and a new cargo hub at the airport.
Windsor has also seen a population exodus from the city’s core to new developments in the outskirts. But developing the land by the airport for new homes and expanding roads to make it easier for those residents to get into and out of central Windsor won’t come at the expense of neighbourhoods in the heart of the city, Cooke said.
“We are very much always encouraging the use of existing city streets, the construction of homes, the support of businesses in the core area and other older, established neighbourhoods in the city. That’s why we look to this neighbourhood as being part of future growth. That’s why we’re looking forward to 20 years and beyond.”
The next big challenge will be figuring out how to pay for it. The province paid for the bulk of the cost of the study, but there’s no guarantee of provincial or federal funding for construction, utility relocation and expropriation of private property necessary for the road extensions.
Cooke said various city, county and provincial staff have worked together well so far. Transportation and planning departments have been working together on a grand scale, with each looking into the future to anticipate the other’s needs, he said.
“It’s very exciting on a large scale to see the co-ordination of, not just Tecumseh in this case, and Lakeshore, but also the County of Essex, the province of Ontario, the City of Windsor, all working together to determine how the environmental assessment can reflect the needs of all those jurisdictions together.”
The province, county and city started the study in 2011 and unveiled it Monday at lauzonparkwayea.ca. Members of the public can also view it at locations across the city and county until March 6 and submit their feedback.
Find Windsor Star on Facebook
