My contact at the Ministry of Transportation tells me we're going to see heavy equipment back on the planned and much-delayed revamped Highway 26 in the next little while.
Has it been ten years since the project was announced? Or is it fifteen? It's hard to remember. What I do remember is the last seven years of being pretty sure the project has little to do with anything other than politics- both the start and the stall of it as far as I can figure.
For once, though, I'm tempted to believe the highway through nowhere might actually be finished one day. Here's why:
I went for a stroll along the Batteaux River Saturday afternoon with a group of cousins during a family reunion. (the naildriving competition was over and we weren't interested in the hayride...) As we checked out the inch and a half of water flowing over the area we call 'flat rock', we spied, in the middle of what looks to be a field, an overpass. No road on either side of it, mind you, but an overpass nonetheless. It was like a scene from Legend, the futuristic dystopia featuring Will Smith, with overgrown roads and no traffic. Truly. Bizarre.
While were were having a walk around and under the overpass, trying to imagine how a four-lane road was going to fit on its rather small width, and checking out the predictably obscene yet somehow boring graffiti, a pickup truck rumbled along. An official-looking type guy got out to snap pictures of the overpass, the river under it and a space beside it.
Afterwards, as he drove on the overpass, he told us there would be a second overpass built to accommodate westbound traffic. It would go a few yards to the east of the one we were standing on. He explained that he was a worker for the company which had won the tender, and work would be starting in the next couple of days.
Finally. Simcoe Grey's highway boondoggle might be about to come to an end, and if the timelines come to pass, two years from now, you'll be able to get from Collingwood to Stayner really fast.
Thank Goodness! It's so very important to hurry so you can get to the Airport Road/26 all-weekend-long bottleneck and practise your cursing.
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