Team Gushue Highway will finally be completed, but it'll take another 3 years, says Abbott

A construction project that began decades ago is entering its final stretch as the design has been finalized and land expropriated, said Infrastructure Minister John Abbott.

Abbott announced a tender to complete the last 3.3 kilometres of the Team Gushue Highway on Tuesday. That stretch will connect Topsail Road, where the highway currently ends, to the Commonwealth Avenue, Brookfield Road and Heavy Tree Road area of Mount Pearl. 

"We expect that construction will start late summer, early fall and that will be done probably over three construction seasons: this year, next year and then completed in the third. And then that is finally finished," Abbott told reporters.

He said the project, which began in 2000, has longer roots.

"Interestingly enough, the idea and the concept for the Team Gushue Highway was done in a plan in 1974. So 50 years later we're actually finally delivering," Abbott said. 

While the "main arteries" of the highway will finally get finished, Abbott said there will be smaller portions added based on further developments in the northeast and northwest of the city. 

The tender will be open for submissions for the next few weeks before the contract is awarded, he said.

The final section of the highway is jointly funded with $30 million through the federal and provincial government, which was announced last year.

"Hopefully the tenders will come in near those amounts," said Abbott. "Time will tell on that." 

He said there was a time delay for releasing the final tender because of delays with finalizing the design.

"We've had to have a lot of negotiations, obviously, with the engineers and the designers and we wanted to make sure we had all the land appropriated as well. And so all of those pieces have now come together," he said.

"But it was largely finalizing the design because that work had not been completed."

Abbott said the department had to go back and look at the design with an eye to traffic patterns and roundabouts, which are a safer way to move traffic.

"And that's why we've gone with the particular design that we have there now," he said.