Rt. Hon. Herb Gray Parkway Wins Environmental Achievement Award

Thursday, July 21, 2016

The 2016 Transportation Association of Canada (TAC) Environmental Achievement Award will be conferred upon the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO) in recognition of Rt. Hon. Herb Gray Parkway – A Parkway in a Prairie.

The award, which recognizes exemplary contributions to the protection and enhancement of the environment or a particularly original solution to an environmental problem, will be presented at the 2016 TAC Conference & Exhibition in Toronto in September.

Construction of the Rt. Hon. Herb Gray Parkway (the Parkway), Ontario’s access road portion of a new border transportation system between Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan, began in 2011. Canada’s busiest land border crossing carries $300 million of goods daily between Canada and the United States.  

Highway 401 opened in late 2015 and final completion is anticipated for the fall of 2016.  

Necessary to improve border crossing capacity, the $1.4 billion Parkway includes:

  • an 11-km extension of the six-lane 401 Highway;
  • a parallel service road for local traffic;
  • 11 tunnels providing linkages to adjacent communities;
  • a wildlife crossing, and
  • recreational trails and more than 120 hectares of greenspace.

As one of the largest highway infrastructure undertakings in Ontario, the project addresses long-term community and environmental impacts associated with high volumes of commercial traffic. Prior to the Parkway, heavy congestion in the existing highway corridor resulted in localized air quality impacts, diversion of trucks to local streets, and a negative economic impact due to border delays.

Implementing an ecologically-based landscape plan, including meeting the stringent requirements of Ontario’s Endangered Species Act, 2007 (ESA) has been the biggest challenge of this project.

“Permits issued under the ESA required the movement of four plant species and two snake species from the construction footprint with associated timing constraints,” explains Joel Foster, Head of MTO Windsor Project Delivery Offices, Environmental Section. “Given the project’s aggressive construction schedule, a critical path was developed considering possible staging in advance of award of the project to show that construction could occur while still meeting permit requirements. Work was staged to accommodate the movement of over 100,000 species at risk plants to protected restoration areas and relocation of an estimated 500 of the two species of snakes.”

Exclusively native seed and vegetation were planted within a landscaped corridor to promote connectivity with adjacent tallgrass prairie habitat. A close partnership with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry allowed for some flexibility. The local sourcing requirement for plant material was a challenge as providing plant provenance is not a typical requirement for Ontario nurseries.

“The most stringent requirements were applied to species of high conservatism value. The scale of the planting effort was unprecedented for an MTO project as it included over 120,000 trees, shrubs, and forbs representing 130 native species and 15 non-standard seed mixes containing 106 different native species of prairie grasses, wildflowers and sedges.”

The Parkway is Ontario’s first highway project to be undertaken following an alternative financing and procurement (AFP) or public-private partnership (P3) approach.

“This project was delivered in partnership with Infrastructure Ontario using the AFP delivery model,” adds Joel. “Our private sector partner, the Windsor Essex Mobility Group, is responsible to design, build, finance and operate the Parkway for the next 30 years. WEMG;  the Essex Region Conservation Authority; Amec Foster Wheeler; AECOM; City of Windsor; LGL Limited; Dillon Consulting; Sage Earth; Parkway Infrastructure Constructors; Fisheries and Oceans Canada; the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry; Walpole Island First Nation; Dan Shab Enterprise; Infrastructure Ontario, and many more partners have been instrumental in the environmental achievements of the Parkway.”

One other full submission for the award was evaluated by a selection committee appointed by TAC’ s Environment Council: Alberta Wildlife Watch (Alberta Transportation).

A session based on the award and featuring both nominees will be held at the upcoming TAC Conference & Exhibition in September. For information on this and other sessions, consult the conference program.               

 


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