One of Airdrie's biggest and most long awaited road projects is finally compete as a ceremony to open 40th Avenue to Main Street took place this morning (November 29).

The road will allow drivers to travel along 40th Avenue from 8th Street to Main Street near the South Transit Terminal.

In a first of it's kind for Airdrie, 40th Avenue has a bridge by Reynolds Gate that travels over of the railway tracks.

Mayor Peter Brown said it was an historic moment for the city and that the roadway will help greatly with Airdrie's traffic issues.

"I'm really excited to sit here and see how many people come up here during rush hour and through the weekend and see how much traffic is diverted off of Yankee Valley because that's really been the pinch point for our community the last number of years."

The process for completing the road was a long one, but Project Manager for the City's Capital Projects Adam Carrol said it was worth it.

"I'm just proud to be part of this project because it's the first one in Airdrie. It was a long process but the partners that we worked with from start to finish were excellent partners: PCL Construction, Fortis, Lafarge, Associated Engineering and ISL Engineering. They were just a great, great team to work with and it just made the process that much simpler."

The City also got help to expedite the project from Vesta Properties, who is building the communities near 40th Avenue in the south part of Airdrie.

While the opening of this part of 40th Avenue is good news, Bob Neale with the City's Engineering department says they're not done with the road yet.

"Right now we're working on the Interchange Design. That should be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2018. Within that project there's some staging options to be able to provide some additional traffic relief for residents and the City."

The City hopes to further extend 40th Avenue to Kings Heights and eventually to a new interchange with the QEII Highway.

 

Questions, comments or story ideas? Email us at news@discoverairdrie.com