Road closures downtown...again, Valley Line LRT construction continues

Valley Line LRT final closure The third and final planned closure of 102 Avenue for Valley Line LRT construction is expected to begin on Tuesday.

Ongoing construction to bring the Valley LRT line into downtown will result in another major intersection closing temporarily next week.

Vehicle and bike traffic on 102 Avenue at 97 Street will close at 9 a.m. on Aug. 6 for one month, as crews push eastward. The work will include installing rail beds, sidewalks and curbs in preparation for street-level LRT trains.

While you can’t drive through the area during the closure, pedestrian access to all businesses will remain, and the Canada Place parkade will be open for vehicles.

Concerns over construction noise during this phase have been discussed with Canada Place and residents of the nearby City Market apartments, said Dean Heuman, Stakeholder Relations Manager with TransEd, the partnership doing the work.

“The noisy sort of jack hammering and stuff like that will be done during the day,” he says. “The first three days are the most noisy, when we’re doing removals, when we’re taking out the asphalt and removing some of the concrete.”

Riders on seven ETS bus routes and three St. Albert Transit routes may see some delays, as detours will be in place for the month.

Manager of Transit Planning for ETS, Andrew Gregory, tells CTV News Edmonton affected bus stops in the area will also be well marked. “We will have orange signs at all bus stops closed, to direct people to the temporary bus stops as well as an ETS street team next Tuesday and Wednesday, to help direct passengers.”

Edmonton’s persistently damp summer weather has played havoc with earlier parts of the Valley Line project, Heuman says.

“We lost 14 shifts. That’s seven days of work on 100 Street, just from water.”

Water management on site, using tarps combined with directing and draining water flow, has been a necessity, he asserts. The current timeline for this phase has taken any potential weather delays into account.

“We’ve factored it in. Our guys are ready for it. They’ve worked really hard to keep the ground in the best shape they can so we can continue to work.”

This is the third and final downtown road closure for the project. Previously, 102 Avenue was closed at 101 Street and again at 100 Street.

TransEd crews have learned from the previous two intersection phases, Heuman claims, allowing for efficiencies in the process.

“The experience is definitely important to us. Once we’ve done it once, you learn something. When you’ve done it twice, you learn that much more. So we feel very comfortable going into this one.”

The intersection is scheduled to re-open to traffic on Monday, Sept. 2.