Another 11 kilometres of four-laned Highway 69 should be open by the long weekend in August, Sudbury MPP and Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault announced Friday.
That brings the total to 70 kilometres, Thibeault said, with about another 68 to go before the job is completed.
"I know that thousands of Sudburians head out to camps and travel south for vacations with their families,” he told reporters Friday outside the OPP station on the highway.
“And this announcement is partly about safer travel. So our government is working hard at completing the four-laning of Highway 69 between Sudbury and Parry Sound.
"So I'm pleased to announce that another 11 kilometres of Highway 69 is now four-laned and will soon be fully open to traffic. This is the section that's north of Highway 64, to north of Highway 607, near the Municipality of French River."
The difficult terrain makes the process more complicated, Thibeault said, with allowances being made for wildlife in the area, as well as the need to blast a lot of rock.
"Widening Highway 69 to four lanes is not as simple as cutting down some trees and paving a road,” he said. “The latest work involved the excavation and placement of nearly 3.7 million cubic metres of rock and earth. Careful steps were taken to protect wildlife and the environment."
Those steps include culverts installed along the roadway to ensure blanding's turtles and massasauga rattlesnakes are able to get through, as well as 12 kilometres of mammal and small reptile fencing.
"That makes for a total cost of $66 million for this latest stretch of four-laning," Thibeault said.
"With today's announcement, 70 kilometres of 69 are now four-laned, 14 kilometres more are under construction and we're also undergoing property acquisition for the additional 68 kilometres."
A total of $770 million has been spent to date, while the budget for the next 14 kilometres is $173 million. That work is expected to be complete in 2019, with the entire project scheduled to be completed by 2021.
The next section is more challenging and expensive because it includes 10 bridges and two new interchanges, Thibeault said, adding that the goal is still to get the remaining section after that completed on time.
"Government staff is working hard to get approval for the remaining sections to complete the entire corridor," he said. "When the entire 69 is completed, we're looking at spending close to $2 billion to get this done. And we know it's money well spent."
