WELLINGTON COUNTY – County council has green-lit three county road rehabilitation projects for the 2022 construction season.
Guelph-based Cox Construction secured the contracts for all three projects, having submitted the least expensive quotes in the competitive bidding process.
In total, factoring in tax, the county will spend $3.38 million on the construction work awarded to Cox.
Wellington Road 7 and Marden Bridge
Wellington Road 7 is in rough shape between Highway 6 and Wellington Road 51 in Guelph/Eramosa, and will be rehabilitated by recycling the current asphalt material.
The Marden Creek Bridge also falls within the stretch of road and has been identified as needing structural rehabilitation in inspection reports.
The stretch of Wellington Road 7 will be closed for a nine-week period with a detour in place following the Canada Day weekend until the Labour Day weekend.
Construction will cost $1.59 million, with the overall project cost rising to $1.7 million once engineering consultant and design fees, internal labour and materials, and a contingency are included.
The tax levy will be used to fund $220,000 of the project with the rest of the dollars coming from the roads reserve ($730,000) and a provincial infrastructure grant ($750,000).
Wellington Road 38
The “Monkey Bridge,” at Guelph’s border, to Highway 6 in Marden will also be rehabilitated with the same recycling method as Wellington Road 7.
Construction will cost $1.25 million with an overall project total of $1.47 million – funded from the roads reserve ($225,000) and $1.25 million from the Canada Community Building Fund, formerly known as the Gas Tax Fund.
Wellington Road 50
Completing a previous reconstruction project, Cox will apply surface asphalt and lay shoulder gravel on Wellington Road 50 from 5th Line in Erin to Wellington Road 24.
Rehabilitation work began on Wellington Road 50 around four years ago, starting at Wellington Road 125 and ending where it turns into Sideroad 5 at Wellington Road 24 (Trafalgar Road).
Broken into two phases, the first ended around 5th and 6th Lines, according to county construction manager Joe de Koning. Two years ago, the second phase of the work was completed up to Wellington Road 24, but with only a base layer of asphalt applied.
“Sometimes you don’t do the surface asphalt in the same year you’ve done the bulk construction because you may be anticipating some [settling] in the subgrade,” de Koning explained.
“This is the last two concessions of that road reconstruction.”
The work will cost $532,431, with $55,000 from the roads reserve and the rest previously accounted for.
The overall project cost rings in at $6.68 million — most of which comes from the tax levy, accounted for in 2010-21 capital budgets. The province chipped in $500,000 and the feds $1 million.
