Ontario announces plans to ‘twin’ Garden City Skyway [Video]

The province announced its plans to build a new bridge alongside the Garden City Skyway early Friday.

It allows cross-border traffic to flow over the Welland Canal and seamlessly connects drivers with the Queen Elizabeth Highway.

Officials estimate that 100,000 vehicles cross the Garden City Skyway each day.

With the Greater Golden Horseshoe’s population forecasted to increase to 15 million by 2051, Ontario’s Minister of Transportation called the move a way to “prepare for the future.”

“Our government is in the middle of the most ambitious transportation infrastructure plan in Ontario’s history,” Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria said.

“This is one of the most critical corridors from an economic perspective in this province. In a year, will see about a trillion dollars worth of goods travel over this piece of infrastructure behind us here today.”

The plan, in its current form, is to first build the new bridge alongside the current Garden City Skyway. Once completed, traffic will temporarily move from the current Garden City Skyway to the new crossing, entirely.

The bridge will connect more people and businesses to good jobs, customers, and travel destinations across the Golden Horseshoe Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria said.

“This will reduce congestion on a vital border route used by more than one hundred thousand drivers and commercial vehicles every single day.”

During that time, the old crossing will be refurbished.

Two bridges would allow opposing traffic to flow independently, much like Burlington’s Skyway — with one side carrying Toronto-bound traffic and the other handling Niagara-bound traffic.

The government has issued a request for proposals for the 2.2 KM bridge.

Several firms have been pre-qualified and invited to bid on the project based on criteria identified during the province’s previous request for qualifications process spanning back to Dec. 2022.

After a proposal is selected, work is expected to begin in 2026.

At this time, the value of the contract remains unclear. Infrastructure Ontario says that information will be made available following the financial closing period.