City councillors hope to speed up the timeline, but a staff report says it will take until 2028 to complete the conversion of Hamilton’s Main Street to two-way traffic.
Within Hamilton’s 2024 capital budget, $1 million has been set aside to fund a detailed engineering design of a two-way Main Street from Dundurn Street in the west end to “the Delta” in the east end.
Another $26 million will be needed to complete the conversion, most of it to re-surface the busy corridor and rebuild traffic signals across the lower city.
Director of engineering services Jackie Kennedy noted that it is a complex project, and she described 2028 as a “realistic” timeline.
“It is not putting man on the moon,” Kennedy said, “but it’s a little more complicated than a simple resurfacing.”
Director of transportation operations Mike Field added that “it involves partial or full reconstruction of 29 traffic signals.”
Field stressed that the resurfacing work was planned, regardless of the switch from one-way to two-way traffic, so the true cost of converting Main Street “is more in the range of $14 million.”
Staff also told councillors, during Monday’s public works committee meeting, that the two-way conversion in the area of Highway 403 needs to happen alongside Hamilton’s LRT project.
“Metrolinx will replace the Main Street bridge over the 403,” Field said. “Conversion of Main Street, between Paradise Road and Dundurn Street, would be completed in conjunction with LRT construction.”
Preparatory work ahead of LRT construction, in the form of water main re-locations and other infrastructure work, is already underway and scheduled to continue next year along the 14-kilometre line, between McMaster University and Eastgate Square.
Metrolinx project director Danielle Bury has not indicated when construction of the rails and other LRT infrastructure will begin, but she confirmed it will happen in segments along the corridor to “minimize disruption.”