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Province announces start to $1.2M highway upgrade

NANAIMO – Work expected to start on two Nanaimo Parkway intersections this month.

A  upgrade to boost safety and help the flow of traffic is coming to the Nanaimo Parkway this spring.

The B.C. government announced Nanaimo’s Hub City Paving has been hired to upgrade two intersections on the Nanaimo Parkway, beginning this month. The cost is just shy of $1.2 million.

The work includes creating dual southbound left-turn lanes at the intersections at the Parkway’s Third Street and Mostar Road. Additional lanes will also be built on Mostar Road and Third Street to receive traffic coming from the left-turn lanes and the signal timing at both locations will be adjusted.

“We’ve seen a steady increase in the volume of traffic on Highway 19 since the Nanaimo Parkway opened in the 1990s,” said Michelle Stilwell, MLA for Parksville-Qualicum and B.C. minister for social development and social innovation, in a press release “This project will improve safety, ease congestion during peak hours, and will be especially beneficial to the large number of commuters and commercial vehicles heading in and out of town by providing more capacity at these intersections.”

The upgrades were announced last year by B.C. Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Todd Stone during the launch of B.C. on the Move, the province’s 10-year transportation plan.

In a press release, he said work at these intersections will improve access on and off the highway into the community and is part of “the $193-million-plus investment committed by this government and our partners into transportation projects on Vancouver Island since last spring.”

Construction is expected to begin before the end of this month and finish in late spring.

Last year, Stone also announced the province will cover half the budgeted cost to improve the intersection at Boundary Avenue, Northfield Road and Highway 19A. The tender for the project will close this April and work is slated for September.