The Westshore’s latest road improvement project will open to traffic next week with a streamlined connection between the Trans Canada Highway’s Leigh Road interchange and Langford Parkway.

 

Line painting and final construction tasks at the new Leigh Road and Langford Parkway intersection will continue through April 6th with activation of the traffic signals and the opening of the intersection scheduled for April 7th.

 

The $3 million extension at the south end of Leigh Road, closing a gap between Bear Mountain Parkway and the Westhills neighbourhood via Leigh Road, has been underway since March of last year but overshot its late summer completion due to delays associated with an E&N Railway crossing.

 

Despite there being no regularly scheduled rail traffic along the south Island’s portion of the E&N Railway, any work involving the tracks must be done to a degree in-keeping with an active railroad operation which adds complexity and cost.

 

Compounding delays was the closure of asphalt paving plants that occurs annually at the start of winter and extends into the New Year. The practice provides an opportunity for plant maintenance and avoids the coldest weather of the year. In other words, any infrastructure upgrade requiring asphalt must wait until plants re-open.

 

“The paving plants close Friday, December 14th and the utilities will not be installed on time for us to pave before the plants close,” reads a statement submitted to Citified by the City of Langford in December. “The plants will re-open some time in early February, however, toplift paving requires a certain temperature so an exact opening date cannot be determined right now until the paving plants re-open.”

 

Come April 7th, motorists will see a controlled intersection at Langford Parkway and Leigh Road with a northbound turning lane for eastbound traffic and improvements for both pedestrians and cyclists.

 

With the extension, motorists travelling to communities such as Sooke, Metchosin and the Westhills area of Langford will cut half a kilometre from their trips by not having to use the Trans Canada Highway and Westshore Parkway intersection to access Westshore Parkway at Westhills. The improvement will also benefit the expansion of Langford Stadium now home to Pacific Football Club.

 

And those travelling into Langford from the west via Westshore Parkway will have a new access point to the Trans Canada Highway and Leigh Road’s connection to Bear Mountain Parkway.

 

Langford’s population growth has necessitated a large-scale road network expansion and improvement plan over the last decade that saw the completion of the Westshore Parkway (connecting the Trans Canada Highway with Sooke Road/Highway 14), Bear Mountain Parkway (connecting the Trans Canada Highway/Leigh Road to the resort community) and extensions that include the bridging of McCallum Road between the Trans Canada Highway and Costco, and the closure of the windy Humpback Road thoroughfare made possible with the opening of Westshore Parkway. A recent extension of Irwin Road between Westshore Parkway and the Humpback Reservoir now connects the Westhills neighbourhood to the Goldstream neighbourhood.

 

A future road connection will bridge Westshore Parkway to the Happy Valley neighbourhood. C

 

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