Kitchener-Waterloo

Grandlinq assures 2017 won't be the traffic nightmare 2016 was in K-W

If you thought trying to drive around K-W in 2016 was a living nightmare, Grandlinq has good news: 2017 will be better. Any road closures will be much shorter, numbering days instead of months says spokeswoman Avril Fisken.
Several roads and intersection in Kitchener-Waterloo opened Friday. (Kate Bueckert/CBC)

If you thought trying to drive around K-W in 2016 was a living nightmare, Grandlinq has good news: 2017 will be better. 

"It's a much rosier picture than we were living with through 2016," said Grandlinq spokeswoman Avril Fisken in an interview with The Morning Edition host Craig Norris on Tuesday. 

"When we started this year, so January last year, we had 30 per cent of the alignment complete. Now, [this] January, it's 90 per cent."

All intersection are currently open, except King St. from Moore Avenue to Victoria and there will still be road closures, due to Ion construction in 2017. 

Those closures will be fewer and shorter, said Fisken, more likely to last a couple days than a few months, while final asphalt layers are laid. 

There are two exceptions: 

  • Frederick Street between Duke and King streets in Kitchener will close while an LRT stop and overhead pedestrian walkway is completed. Both intersections will remain open. 
  • The area of King Street between Victoria and Moore streets in Kitchener, which will stay closed until spring 2017.

Listen to the whole interview here: