Final stretch of Team Gushue Highway opens Friday

The final section of the Team Gushue Highway in St. John’s officially opens on Friday, Oct. 23, 25 years after construction began on the road, the Newfoundland and Labrador government said.

Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Barry Petten is opening the last stretch at an event at 10 a.m. at the Admiralty House Communications Museum annex on Old Placentia Road in Mount Pearl, according to a provincial media advisory. He is to be joined by Fisheries Minister Loyola O’Driscoll, Cape Spear-Mount Pearl-Paradise MP Tom Osborne, Mount Pearl Mayor Dave Aker, St. John’s Mayor Danny Breen and Olympic curler Brad Gushue.

The highway links the west end of St. John’s to the Outer Ring Road area. Work started in 2001, when the project was known as the Bifurcation Road, and the road was built in several phases, CBC News reported. It was initially expected to be finished by 2014.

The first section opened in 2006 and was named for Gushue and his rink, who won Olympic gold in men’s curling in Turin, Italy, that year.

The final phase connects the end of the highway to the interchange of Pitts Memorial Drive and Robert E. Howlett Memorial Drive using a roundabout corridor, the province said when it announced joint federal and provincial funding to complete the highway in 2023.

The opening comes as the province pushes ahead with other road work. On Thursday it issued a tender for the first phase of twinning the Trans-Canada Highway in central Newfoundland. Drivers heading out this weekend should also check conditions, as Josephine brings wind warnings to the Avalon and south coast.

For more news from the capital region, see our St. John’s coverage.

If you find reporting like this useful, consider supporting Canada News Media, an independent Canadian newsroom with no corporate parent.