Two lanes of the late, over-budget Plessis Underpass set to open Saturday

WINNIPEG — Two lanes of the over-budget, past-deadline Plessis Underpass are set to open on Saturday.

At one point the city thought the project could be finished by September 2015 but delays caused the completion date to be moved back. The project was originally supposed to be completed by 2014.

RELATED: Plessis Road underpass project ‘an embarrassment,’ councillor says

The other two lanes are now expected to open by next fall at the latest.

Even still, the community is thrilled to have half the lanes open, “It’s been two years we’ve been waiting for this day so everybody’s excited and we’re anticipating it will be a lot calmer in terms of traffic,” says Andy Zarrillo, principal of Bernie Wolfe Community School.

The school sits on Bournais Dr. a residential street drivers have been using to bypass Plessis while it’s been closed.

While drivers and community members are happy to have the long-awaited underpass open, city officials are focusing on how to learn from what went wrong with the project.

“Definitely the lesson learned was to do more up front engineering and engage stakeholders at a better level earlier in the project,” says Lester Deane, acting director of the city’s public works department.

He says more upfront studies would have mitigated delays caused by underground oil pipelines that had to be moved.

The area’s city councillor, Russ Wyatt, says better communication should be something to focus on in the future, “Get that information out to folks and explain what’s going on and hopefully that’s a lesson that will be taken and learnt for the future.”

Lessons that will be key as the city grows and more large infrastructure projects come online, says Wyatt, “For years and years and years we in Winnipeg were not building big, big projects. It’s only really in the last decade that we’ve started to invest in new strategic infrastructure.”