Concession Street, from Upper Wellington Street to Upper Sherman Avenue, is a main transportation corridor on the Hamilton east mountain atop the Niagara escarpment. Originally known as Stone Road, Concession Street is one of the oldest settlement areas on the Hamilton mountain. The road supports commercial, institutional, residential and parkland development and is the home to one of the original, active and very successful business improvement areas (BIAs) of Hamilton, ON. The street is a major transit route with several mountain routes using this corridor. The only full service Hamilton hospital on the mountain, the Juravinski Hospital, is located within the limits of this project.
The pavement and watermain infrastructure was structurally deficient and the boulevard-aged concrete pavers needed rehabilitation. During the planning stage this multi-year construction project was accelerated to be completed in 2015 to reduce local business community area and transit user impacts. Dillon was retained by the City of Hamilton in the late summer of 2014 to assist in meeting this goal with utility coordination of associated improvements, detailed design and the completion of tender documents. Design considerations included a concrete road, reinforced watermain network, trenchless construction for the watermain infrastructure improvements and a complex staged completion tender strategy to limit the impacts to local businesses, transit and the Juravinski Hospital. In order to deliver the project on schedule timely identification and coordination of Bell Infrastructure conflicts, Dillon worked directly with Bell Canada to ensure that the project was not delayed.
Relocation of utilities commenced in early 2015 with the City construction being completed in two phases with the first phase (Upper Wellington to Upper Wentworth) commencing in March 2015 and being completed in August 2015 with the second phase (Upper Wentworth to Upper Sherman) commencing in April 2015 and completed in November 2015. The project enhanced pedestrian amenities with an urban braille sidewalk, lay-by or curb bump outs, coloured boulevards, street furniture, boulevard plantings and improvements to pedestrian safety through the construction of two new pedestrian signalize crossings to complement the existing pedestrian crossings that are mid-block of the controlled intersections at Upper Wellington Street, Upper Wentworth Street and Upper Sherman Avenue.
The project has been recognized by both the Ontario Public Works Association for the 2015 Public Works Project of the Year Award for the Transportation, $10 - $50M Category and by the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, Hamilton/Halton Engineering Week Committee for the 2016 Infrastructure-Transportation Project of the Year for demonstrating the value and importance of engineering in the local community.