It is the next step in rebuilding West Fraser Road in the Quesnel area.
The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure issued the tender this morning to rebuild the washed-out sections of the road that happened in the spring of 2018.
Todd Hubner, the District Manager with the Ministry, says it took some time to get to this point as it is a very complicated project…
“These projects are very complicated and they do take time to basically form an alignment and refine the design and then there is a whole process involved in getting to where we’re at today in terms of property negotiations, geotechnical analysis, getting all the necessary environmental approvals in place as well as finalizing the design so it’s a process that takes time but it’s a very thorough and refined process at the same time.”
Hubner says there is a six week window to accept bids and he says it will take two or three weeks after that for them to go over those bids.
He says they hope to award a contract around the third week of February and expects work to then begin in the spring with a complete date of the fall of 2023.
The plan is to build 5.6 kilometers of two-lane road on a new alignment on the east side of Narcosli Creek along with a new bridge crossing.
Hubner says it is the largest project in his 20 years as District Manager…
“There is a little over 700 thousand cubic meters of material that needs to be moved.  To put that into perspective our tandem dump trucks that you see traveling up and down the highway typically pack 7 cubic meters, so there is literally 100 thousand dump truck loads of material plus that needs to be moved in concert with this project, as well as a fairly significant bridge crossing at Narcosli Creek.”
Hubner says 103 million dollars is forecast for this project.
Until it’s completed, impacted residents will have to continue to use the Garner and Webster Lake Road system.
“Those are public roads under the Ministry’s authority and we continue to maintain those, and we’re going to continue to do that through construction and even post-construction, that is a viable route that the Ministry will continue to utilize, and EMCOM will continue to be tasked with day to day maintenance of that. We do appreciate the public’s patience as we’ve worked through the two plus years of using that detour up until now, and clearly we have another couple of years of significant use.”
Hubner says they have worked closely with the local First Nations Community of Esdilagh on this project.