Full road closures are beginning along Sandwich Street in west Windsor.
As of June 4, parts of Sandwich Street will be closed in both directions between Chappell Avenue and Chewett Street to complete work on new watermains and to begin preparatory work for road construction.
The closure will lead to road construction, and full closures will span two blocks at a time, with the closures moving as the work progresses.
Local access within the full closure will be provided, as well as garbage services and emergency personnel as required.
Ward 2 Councillor Fabio Costante says the intermittent closures throughout the street will not prohibit traffic coming in and out of Sandwich Town.
"There's going to be some detours where the construction is happening," he says. "As I understand it, the aggregate trucks will be using Russell Street and entering and exiting Sandwich through Russell Street, not through residential neighbourhoods."
Costante says commuters will still be able to come through Sandwich Town even with the detours.
"All the businesses are open during regular business hours, and they will be throughout the entire stretch of construction. Please, if you can, patronize the businesses and help the community out during this difficult time. It's short-term pain for what will be, long-term, a really good thing for Sandwich," he says.
This is all part of a project that began in mid-April, and this latest phase involves the completion of watermain services, along with paving and streetscape work.
Costante says this is a welcome infrastructure investment.
"There's been a significant amount of work already done to realign the sewers. Now we're seeing the watermain work and the road work, eventually, and then the streetscaping," he says.
The work on Sandwich Street is all part of improving access points to the new Gordie Howe International Bridge.
The Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority, which is managing the project for the Government of Canada, announced in January 2024 that construction of the new crossing will not be completed until September 2025.
Vehicles are not expected to start crossing the bridge until later that fall.
The delay from the previous completion date of November 2024 has also resulted in an increase in the cost of the project, rising to $6.4 billion from $5.7 billion, a $700 million increase.
Work on the crossing began in 2018.