Wharncliffe Road South Underpass

Recently, I was approached by several business owners who were concerned about the upcoming work in 2020 to widen the underpass at Wharncliffe Road and Horton Street. As some of you might be aware, the City is currently widening Wharncliffe Road from Oxford Street to Western Road including a similar project to widen the underpass at the CP rail line. 

The project to widen both underpasses is ambitious and requires some fancy engineering. Essentially, a second bridge is built alongside the existing bridge and that new bridge is then slid into place to replace the old bridge.  This technique minimizes interruption to both vehicular traffic and train traffic. However, where the two projects differ is in the additional roadwork required at Horton. 

The approach to the underpass along Wharncliffe Rd. South is too high and the dip in the road that currently exists at the underpass wouldn’t meet today’s design standards.  This means that the entire intersection at Horton and Wharncliffe will need to be lowered by excavating the area.  Sewer work will also be performed at the same time to get the highest efficiency from the project. 

So what does this all mean?  The good news is that one of London’s notorious bottlenecks will be fixed.  The bad news is that it will require a closure of the road for five months.  There will be obvious impacts to businesses and residents during the construction. It will be essential that we look at every option to minimize the disruption to everyone in our area.  To that end, I’ll be holding a meeting in the next few months to provide an opportunity for our community to talk with our engineers so that we can get the best outcomes and lowest impacts for our businesses and residents.  I’ll get the word out through social media and posters in the neighbourhood as we get closer to the date and I hope you’ll be able to attend.

There are a number of large projects associated with the Transportation Master Plan including the Wharncliffe underpasses, a long-awaited new underpass at Adelaide and Central, widening of Wonderland Road and building road network capacity to support Bus Rapid Transit.  While this project is still a couple years away, it is an important step in helping move Londoners around our city quickly and efficiently, no matter which mode of travel you choose. 

More information about the project can be found here: Wharncliffe Rd. South PIC 2 Displays