What’s going on here: Yonge Street project milestone in Richmond Hill

Rapidway marks the first pavement work in the Yonge Street rapidway project in Richmond Hill

Yorkregion.com
August 17, 2018
Sheila Wang

The ongoing rapidway project along Yonge Street hit a new milestone in Richmond Hill as the pavement work started Aug. 15 on the west side of the road.

Crews have begun paving the base-layer asphalt on Yonge Street within the widened area on Yonge from Levendale Road to Elgin Mills Road, which is scheduled to be complete by 7 p.m. on Aug. 16.

It marks the first pavement work in the Yonge Street rapidway project in Richmond Hill, according to Dale Albers, York Region Rapid Transit Corporation’s chief communications officer.

“It’s kind of exciting for us to reach this milestone because we’re able to start paving now as most of the utilities underground and above grounds have been moved out of the way,” Albers said.

Two lanes are open to traffic on each direction during the roadwork.

The widened area on the west side will remain in the work zone after the completion of the base-layer pavement to allow crews to continue to work in a safe area, including installing street lights, pouring concrete sidewalks and installing the paver stones.

The paving work on the east side of Yonge will begin after the west side pavement is complete.

“As the project evolves, they’ll be paving more and more on the outer edges, because that’s where the traffic will be pushed to later on,” Albers said.

Once the traffic resumes on the outer lanes on both sides of Yonge Street, crews will start work on the construction of the rapidways and rapidway stations down the middle of Yonge.

Road work and traffic-lane reductions are expected along Yonge all year round.

The Yonge Street entrance to the Richmond Heights Plaza at 10520 Yonge St. will be temporarily closed from 7 a.m. on Aug. 20 to 7 p.m. on Aug. 22. Yonge will be reduced to one southbound lane within the work area to accommodate storm sewer installations.

The $430-million project on Yonge Street is expected to be complete by December 2020 with two northbound traffic lanes, two southbound traffic lanes and dedicated bus lanes for the viva buses.

Some work may be rescheduled due to weather. Watch twitter.com/vivanext for last-minute updates.