A milestone in Nanaimo’s Midtown Gateway project has opened new routes and connections for commuters.
Traffic lights flickered into action at the new intersection for Bowen and Boxwood roads and the Beban Parkway shortly before noon Wednesday, Jan. 22, allowing a City of Nanaimo fleet vehicle, carrying city workers and council members, to cross Bowen Road, from Beban Parkway to Boxwood Road, as part of the official kickoff.
Bill Sims, city general manager of engineering and public works, gave reasons for creation of the intersection.
“The driver was really, traffic,” he said. “Dealing with the intersection at Northfield and Bowen – in fact, our busiest city-owned intersection in the city, which often creates some congestion problems – that was the start, to try and alleviate traffic."
The extension of Boxwood Road to Bowen Road, as part of the project to build new surface infrastructure over a new water main system, created a number of spin-off benefits. It included reclaiming an old brownfield site, created by old coal mining operations and recreation of wetlands that were there prior to the start of mining operations and which in turn will refresh water going into Northfield Creek.
In addition, contaminated soil will be remediated and the project “unlocked about $70 million in private development,” referring to housing construction already well underway in the Boxwood Road extension.
The intersection also provides easy access to Beban Park, a shopping plaza at Bowen and Northfield roads and, as part of the project, a cycling and pedestrian trail will be complete in November, running the length of Boxwood and connecting with trails along the Nanaimo Parkway and to the E&N Trail via Beban Park.
Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog narrated a history of the area and spoke on the future benefits from the project.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for people to access Beban [Park], to access the city and access it in a way that reduces congestion on Northfield, that allows for safe transportation if you’re on a bicycle, allows for the kind of pedestrian access that we all know and appreciate is really, really important."
