Abstract Manager

Municipalities and Roadway Authorities across the country are faced with rapid growth in development to address the expanding population and housing shortage.  This is resulting in challenges in delivering roadway and municipal infrastructure to meet growing needs and integrate with ongoing development.  Addressing these challenges requires a flexible team approach and mentality throughout design and construction phases.  This paper presents the challenges and team approach implemented on the Britannia Road Widening from Regional Road 25 to Highway 407 Project.

The Britannia Road Widening Project from RR25 to Highway 407 was designed and tendered as two separate projects, RR25 to James Snow Parkway (JSP) and JSP to Highway 407 respectively, with two separate design consultants. To provide consistency, integration, and flexibility during the construction phase the Region elected to adopt an Overall Construction Management model. With the large size and complexity of the two contracts it was critical to have an overall team to maintain accountability and ownership over the whole project area and act as the main contact point for Region and Contractor.

A collaborative team approach between consultants and the Region fostered and implemented a mentality of not accepting ‘no’ for an answer in the face of project challenges. This resulted in a highly flexible team which fostered proactive outside-the-box approaches to mitigate utility impacts, changing municipal infrastructure needs, and ongoing adjacent development to keep the project on track with schedule, budget and objectives.

The paper will highlight the resourcing strategy and technical approaches implemented to resolve challenges including: Working with the Contractor to add additional crews, and willingness by both parties (Owner/Contractor) to negotiate to ensure win-win scenarios; approach to managing significant utilities conflicts and delays; use of cut-in valve chambers; modification to construction sequencing to accommodate changes in design and material delivery challenges; and Construction management techniques.

The project success resulted in the delivery of an $160M+ conversion of a 2-lane rural road to a 6-lane urban major arterial including municipal infrastructure expansion (water and wastewater) on time and on budget while successfully mitigating impacts of Covid 19, utilities, and ongoing development.