Construction crews began putting up fencing on Kingston’s John Counter Boulevard near the Cataraqui River on Monday.
It’s the first sign of preparatory work getting underway for the start of this summer’s construction on Kingston’s third crossing.
The idea of a bridge across the Cataraqui River was first floated in the 1960s, but it wasn’t until the 1990s that it looked like the bridge might become a reality.
In 1992, a city staff report identified the single-lane LaSalle Causeway as being at capacity.
The report identified several options to deal with the increasing traffic, and a bridge was the preferred option.
Some of the options in that report included doing nothing, creating a ferry service and even building a tunnel.
Fast-forward to 1999 and no crossing had been built or was even close when a private company approached the city about constructing a three-lane toll bridge.
Gary Bennett was the mayor at that time and says there was little appetite for a pay-per-use bridge and that the city had a larger issue it was wrestling.
Back then, the City of Kingston, Kingston Township and Pittsburgh Township were going through amalgamation, an often bitter process.
Bennett says there was a lot to deal with while merging the two townships and the city.
“It didn’t get put on the back burner because it was certainly there during the amalgamation, but I think putting the new City of Kingston together from the former townships was the first piece of business that needed to be dealt with,” Bennett said.
The 2006-10 Kingston city council started the third crossing process in a way that made bridge construction the reality it is today.
MP for Kingston and the Islands Mark Gerretsen was a new councillor at that time.
He says credit for that council’s decision to pay for an environmental assessment goes to former councillor Leonore Foster.
“I can honestly say that the environmental assessment would have never started without Leonore continually pushing on this file,” Gerretsen said.
Foster had been advocating for a bridge in the early 1990s when she was a Pittsburgh Township councillor.
The environmental assessment cost the city $2 million and was completed in 2012.
By that time, there had been another election, and Gerretsen was now mayor.
Gerretsen says the environmental assessment started a clock ticking to either get a bridge built or put the idea to rest.
“Those environmental assessments are good for a 10-year period so you basically have to start your project within that time. Otherwise, you’ve wasted the money on the (environmental assessment),” Gerretsen explained.
Since that time, municipal officials have lobbied a one-third cost-sharing agreement with the provincial and federal governments for the $180-million bridge.
The final third from the federal government, funded through the Canada Builds program, couldn’t be announced until the province signed on and the municipal government was ready with their $60 million.
The bridge is scheduled for completion by 2022 and will run from John Counter Boulevard on the west side of the Cataraqui River to Gore Road on the east side.
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