November update on Greenfield, Hawthorne, Main (GMH) project

Email from Patrick Sammon, Sr. Engineer, Infrastructure Projects for City of Ottawa Infrastructure and Water Services to OOECA Transportation Chair:

The contractor will look to extend one-way restriction on Main and Greenfield to the end of the year, and put the project into winter shut down by December 31, 2024. (the contractor intends to shut down before Christmas, but the extension will be requested to end of December)

• Reinstatement of roadways for Main and Greenfield will be in asphalt with the sidewalks in temporary asphalt for most areas. Contractor intends to leave concrete sidewalks where possible and patch with temporary asphalt in other areas.
• Sewer work on Main Street (Greenfield to Harvey) will extend to late fall and be a later reinstatement area.
• Water and sewer work on Montcalm and Concord will extend to late fall and be a later reinstatement area, with similar base asphalt and temp asphalt sidewalks.
• No significant winter work is being proposed between December 31, 2024 and April 1, 2025.
• Underground work on Concord between Montcalm and Havelock will be deferred to next year. The watermain is 1908 vintage but had been indicated as 1985 in our GIS system. Sanitary, Storm, and Watermain will all be replaced with associated services next year in the spring of 2025.
• Harvey (Main to Concord), and Echo (Hwy 417 to Main) will be done next year per our combined sewer separation plan.
• Main at Harvey is the outlet for the sanitary and the storm sewers, and we need to remove the existing combined sewers which currently flow under the canal and reverse the flows back to Main Street. There will be a lot of work in the Main and Harvey intersection which is where the work will start in the Spring of 2025.
• Traffic will be heavily impacted in this area, and we foresee reimplementation of the 1-way traffic restriction on Main and Greenfield, although we are looking at options for reducing the duration by using weekend / night work and full road closure here. (note that the one-way traffic restriction was always going to be reinitiated in 2025 for a minimum of 2 months).
• We are working at depths of 6m for the Storm, 4m for the Sanitary, 3m for the watermain, and 1.5m for utility ducts all in the same excavation which makes a full closure more efficient. We still need to explore that option.
• Considerable Hydro, Rogers, and Bell work is ongoing on Greenfield between Main and Havelock, we expect this to continue until winter shut down. Additional utility work, intersection, streetlighting underground will largely be undertaken in 2025.
• Hydro Ottawa and Rogers work on Hawthorne Avenue to transfer the overhead services to underground will start in late fall, and we expect the poles to be removed sometime over the winter shut down. Sidewalks and boulevards are expected to largely be complete with some gaps for where the poles have to come out. We are also leaving temporary asphalt in front of the Ballantyne Entrance and in front of 18 Hawthorne over winter.

A more formal newsletter for distribution is anticipated around mid-November. Public has raised concerns about maintenance during winter conditions, and we are working through that with Surface Ops. GIP will be responsible for plowing and snow removals until they have hard surfaces down (asphalt or Concrete). They will also be responsible for snow removals on Main (Hawthorne to Colonel By), and Greenfield (Main to King Edward) until the one-way restriction is removed, which should be before Christmas.

Contact information:

Patrick Sammon, P.Eng.

Sr. Engineer, Infrastructure Projects