Two large sudbury road projects in limbo: maley drive extension needs funding, and second avenue faces local complaints.

• Author: Migneault, Jonathan

Two of Sudbury's largest road construction projects have remained in a state of economic and political limbo for years.

The first, and largest, is the Maley Drive extension the city has discussed since the 1980s.

At a cost of roughly $125 million, the Maley Drive Extension would complete the road ring around the city allowing heavy trucks headed west or east on Highway 17 to bypass downtown Sudbury and other busy roads, saving wear and tear on the city's already bumpy streets. It would also offer motorists a more convenient route to get to different parts of the city--the Valley from Sudbury for example--easing traffic congestion at some major intersections.

To complete the project, the City of Greater Sudbury would need to secure a third of the funding each from the provincial and federal governments, respectively.

In August the province committed $26.7 million to fund the project. But that leaves the city roughly $15 million short of what it had hoped to receive from the project.

The city has committed to its share of the project funding, and while the federal government has not announced any specific plans for Maley Drive, it has committed to a $14-billion national infrastructure fund to support major road building projects.

The project would widen Maley Drive to four lanes, from the Falconbridge Highway to Barrydowne Road. Then a new road would connect to Maley to College Boreal at the Lasalle Extension, which would also be widened to four lanes until it links up with Municipal Road 35, leading to Azilda.

Fully completed, the extension would divert about 10,000 vehicles a day from The Kingsway and Lasalle Boulevard, as well as significantly reduce the wear and tear heavy industrial trucks inflict on local roads.

Tony Cecutti, Greater Sudbury's general manager of infrastructure. has said the Maley Drive extension will benefit the city tremendously.

"The heavy industrial truck traffic is going to want to go there," Cecutti said. "It will be an easier route will less traffic (signals).

They won't be competing with domestic traffic by commercial areas like malls that tends to slow traffic down."

Cecutti said the road ring around the city could be completed even with the partial funding, but four-laning the entire stretch would have to be done later.

"The full benefit as defined in the (environmental assessment) won't be realized until there's four lanes along the entire length of the road," he said. "However, that doesn't mean we wouldn't...