In a few weeks time, the city of London will shut down Ridout St. between Horton St. and the entrance to Thames Park to start construction removing and replacing Victoria Bridge.
CREIDT: JESS KYLE
This project is worth $23-million and it will take more than a year to complete. It will disrupt major artery into downtown from London’s south end.
This project won’t be completed until summer 2023. The city will take down many trees and alter the entrance to the park. They are shutting down the tennis courts and new ones will eventually be installed.
I had the chance to talk to two mothers at the park about what’s going to happen.
Stacy says she’s new to town and had no idea what the plan was.
“I think now that I know more about it. It’s probably a good idea if their plan is to make it safer. For pedestrians and bikes.”
Natasha on the other hand, had some things to say about this new project.
“There’s Wortley. And then there is Wharncliffe. So, they’re ripping up that intersection at Wharncliffe? Are they going to time these to happen at the exact same time so that nobody has a detour? I see they’re cutting down trees and stuff to start this project. But that project, they just got the rights to rip down that house. So, they’re going to replace that bridge and widen all of that entire intersection is going to be out. So where are those cars gonna go?”
CREDIT: JESS KYLE
Natasha thinks that before we fix the bridge, we should fix the bike lanes first.
“I think that if you go under the bridge on those bike paths it’s this wide. You can’t see around the corners. I’ve never seen streets with no cyclist. But here there’s no cyclists on the streets and everybody cuts through these bike pass like in Springbank and stuff. there’s all these bikes and they zoom down there like I think that safety there is a little more important than like widening that because there’s two on either side. So, there’s pedestrian crossing you’re gonna go and bikes can actually go on the bridge but under there like there’s like nowhere pushes overgrowing.”
It’s going to be a very busy year. Make sure you know the detours, be prepared for massive changes in the City of London.
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