Team Gushue Highway will finally be completed, but it'll take another 3 years, says Abbott

A construction project that began decades ago isentering itsfinal stretch asthedesign has been finalized and land expropriated, saidInfrastructure Minister John Abbott.

Abbottannounced a tender to complete the last 3.3 kilometres of the Team Gushue Highway on Tuesday. That stretch will connect Topsail Road, where the highway currently ends, to the Commonwealth Avenue, Brookfield Road and Heavy Tree Road area of Mount Pearl.

"We expect that construction will start late summer, early fall and that will be done probably over three construction seasons: this year, next year and then completed in the third.And then that is finally finished," Abbott told reporters.

He said the project, which began in 2000, has longer roots.

"Interestingly enough, the idea and the concept for the Team Gushue Highway was done in a plan in 1974. So 50 years later we're actually finally delivering," Abbott said.

While the"main arteries" of the highway will finally get finished, Abbott said there will be smaller portions added based on further developments in the northeast and northwest of the city.

The tender will be open for submissions for the next few weeks before the contract is awarded, he said.

WATCH | Team Gushue Highway is 'finally' nearing the end phase, says infrastructure minister John Abbott:

Team Gushue Highway finally nearing end phase, says infrastructure minister

2 months ago

Duration 0:52

Decades after the first plans were drawn, the Team Gushue Highway is nearing its final stage. Transportation Minister John Abbott says construction will begin later this year, and will be carried out over the next three years.

The finalsection of the highway is jointly funded with $30 million through the federal and provincial government,which was announced last year.

"Hopefully the tenders will come in near those amounts," said Abbott. "Time will tell on that."

He said there was a time delay for releasing the final tender because of delays with finalizing the design.

"We've had to have a lot of negotiations, obviously, with the engineers and the designers and we wanted to make sure we had all the land appropriated as well. And so all of those pieces have now come together," he said.

"But it was largely finalizing the design because that work had not been completed."

Abbott said the departmenthad to go back and look at the design with an eye to traffic patterns and roundabouts, which are a safer way to move traffic.

"And that's why we've gone with the particular design that we have there now," he said.

For the time being, as it's a provincial road, the province is maintaining the new stretch of highway but Abbottalluded to future discussions with the cities of St. John's and Mount Pearl over what he called the "ownership and maintenance of a lot of the new routes we put in place."

"But until we've got to build we're going to park those discussions."

Download our free CBC News app to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Click here to visit our landing page.