Maley Drive extension to open by end of 2019

The Maley Drive extension is on track to be open to traffic by the end of the year.

The $80 million road that connectsFalconbridge Highway to Lasalle Boulevardwill be completed by the end of 2019, however this is only the first phase project.

The second phase, which does not have funding yet, is expected to connect Maley Drive to Elm Street West.

David Shelsted, the director of engineering services for the City of Greater Sudbury, saidthere will only be a small amount of construction that will need to be done in early 2020, but the road will be open while that work is being completed.

Earlier in August, a small portion of the road was opened to traffic, connecting Frood Road to Notre Dame Avenue.The road is currently open on the north side of the roundabout.

"We're using some of the configuration of a future roundabout right now at Collge Boraland the Terry Fox Sports Complex," Shelsted said.

"We had to build half of it and move the traffic over, so that we could build the other two lanes and the second half of the roundabout before we open it up and make it fully functional as a roundabout."

"Right now even though it's half a roundabout, it's operating with temporary traffic signals," he said. "Those are temporary so they won't be there when the roundabout opens.It'll be functioning as a proper roundabout."

Once the project is complete, there willbe four roundabouts on the Maley Drive extension.

Shelsted saidthey looked at several different options for traffic control, including traffic signals versus roundabouts. But overall, Shelstedsaid they found that roundabouts are safer.

"What you don't get is a t-bone collision when you're making a left hand turns across traffic, so you would only get side-swipe or angle collisions in a roundabout, so less property damage, less risk of injury," he said.

"In addition, they work well to relieve congestion and traffic is always moving."

He says the city will be doing a communications plan with the roundabouts as a refresher to help educate or remind people how they work.