Province spending $2M to stop flooding on highway in Greater Sudbury

The province is spending nearly $2 million to fix the flooding problem in a rural area of Greater Sudbury.

Highway 537 between Wahnapitae and Wanup has to be closed to traffic several times a year due to flooding from Jumbo Creek.

"What's the point of having a road if you cannot have any confidence that the road's going to be open? And they've been waiting a long time," said Sudbury city councillor Deb McIntosh.

McIntosh represents Ward 9, where the highway is. She has been lobbying the province to fix the problem since she was elected in 2015.

The construction on the highway will begin this summer and should be complete by the end of 2020 with an estimated pricetag of $1.92 million. 

The plan is to raise about half a kilometre of highway by as much as a metre and a half and install a new culvert for the creek to pass through. 

"You know I have to trust the engineers that they've done their math about how much water there is and how much capacity we need to create for the water," said McIntosh.

Highway 537 will be closed to traffic during construction for the next two summers, sometimes for as long as 15 days at a time. Traffic would use a nearby municipal gravel road to detour around during the construction.

"Hopefully, fingers crossed, it's going to solve the problem," McIntosh said.