Terminal Avenue South: Road Rehabilitation and Utility Upgrade Project

The City has completed the engineering design and utility upgrades for the rehabilitation of Terminal Avenue South. The utility work was completed in 2017 allowing the trenches to settle prior to road rehabilitation. The road pavement rehabilitation will start in April 2018 and include other peripheral improvements including the reconstruction of Cypress Street and Estevan bike lanes. The project area includes Terminal Avenue from St. George Street to Stewart Avenue with the approximate limits shown in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1

Terminal Avenue is a mixed use corridor with single dwelling and multi-unit residential amongst various commercial properties. Some of the commercial business have alternate access from side streets off of Terminal Avenue, however the majority of residential dwellings do not making the corridor important to both residents and businesses. Current traffic loads of over 30,000 vehicles result in a very active corridor.

The City is also committed to strategic asset management and observes utility improvement projects as a whole, considering the remaining design life of all assets within the project area. Those determined to have a future impact within the expected 25-year life of the rehabilitated road surface were replaced including 1320m of sanitary sewer, 450m of storm sewer, and 260m of watermain.

Want To Know More?

If you have any comments or questions on the planned improvements, please contact us at 250-754-4251 ext. 4230 or email EngineeringInfo@nanaimo.ca.

  • Progress

    Project milestones listed below:

    Milestone Approximate Date
    Award of Consulting Contract    January 2016 (complete)
    100% detailed design submission December 2016 (complete)
    Tendering  January 2017 (complete)
    Utility Upgrade start   April 2017 (complete)
    Utility Upgrade finish    January 2018 (complete)
    Road Rehabilitation start  April 2018 (complete)
    Road Rehabilitation finish July 2018 (complete)

    Project Updates

    The project is now complete.

  • Documents
  • Details

    Pavement Rehabilitation

    As of January 2018 all of the subsurface utilities have been upgraded. The pavement rehabilitation will start along Terminal Avenue in mid-April 2018 and will be completed using a technique called Mill and Overlay. This is accomplished by grinding out a depth of approximately 65 mm of existing asphalt, and replacing it with the same depth of new asphalt. The design calls for superpave asphalt, which stands for SUperior PERforming Asphalt PAVEments. This type of asphalt system primarily addresses two pavement distresses: permanent deformation, which results from inadequate shear strength in the asphalt mix; and low temperature cracking, which is generated when an asphalt pavement shrinks and the tensile stress exceeds the tensile strength. The design parameters are shown below in Table 1.

    As the project scope does not include any road widening, the existing curbs, gutters, and sidewalks will remain, with only the pavement surface being restored; approximately 23,000 m2 of road surface area will be rehabilitated. This will extend the life of the existing roadway by 20-25 years and will create a smooth surface by eliminating the effects of tire ruts and asphalt breakdown that has occurred over decades of use.  

    Sanitary Sewer Replacement

    The sanitary sewers replaced along Terminal Avenue were mainly Asbestos Cement installed in 1960. These sewers generally run parallel with the roadway underneath the sidewalks and were replaced in their current location (online). A total of 1320m of sanitary sewer was replaced under this project. Sidewalks that were removed or damaged during construction were rebuilt with 1.8m - 2.1m wide asphalt and concrete sidewalks to improve the safety of pedestrian travel throughout the corridor.

    The two major areas where sanitary sewer replacements were completed are dashed in yellow and shown for the north (Figure 2A) and south (Figure 2B) parts of the project area.

    Figure 2AFigure 2A Figure 2BFigure 2B
     

    Storm Sewer Replacement/Improvement

    Two surface drainage improvements were completed that remove operational risk associated with the existing pipe alignments. Alternate drainage were constructed in order to eliminate any private property issues and ensure access is available for future operation and maintenance. Figures 3A and 3B show the location of these improvements along with their new locations which total 450m of new storm sewer.

    Figure 3A
    Figure 3A
    Figure 3BFigure 3B

    Watermain Replacement

    While most of the watermain in the Terminal Avenue right-of-way was upgraded to Ductile Iron in 1991, some sections of much older Cast Iron watermain from 1954 remained and were replaced in 2017. As part of this project approximately 260m of watermain was upgraded/replaced. Figure 4 shows the main location of the water system improvements on Terminal between Dawes and Stewart.

     Figure 4Figure 4

  • Background

    Terminal Avenue was historically owned and maintained by the Province, and provided the main north-south corridor for travel through Vancouver Island and the City of Nanaimo. Following the construction of the Nanaimo Parkway in 1997, the section of Terminal Avenue between Stewart Avenue and Brechin Road was transferred to the City as it was then suggested to primarily serve a municipal function, and was no longer useful to the Provincial government.  

    In 2014 the City Road Operations staff completed an inspection of the asphalt along Terminal Avenue and found that the road pavement was failing badly in many locations and was at the end of its useful life. Pavement distress was readily observed in the form of considerable longitudinal and transverse cracking, as well as displacement of the road surface due to road base failure. Additional defects included significant rutting within the vehicle wheel alignment, polished road surface aggregate, and pothole formations from joint separation of asphalt lifts. The wheel rutting and surface lift cracking has reduced effective drainage within the roadway, allowing water ingress to exacerbate the breakdown of the road structure.

    Considering the above, it was recommended that major road rehabilitation be expedited and completed within the 5-year Capital Plan. City staff have identified, budgeted, and scheduled interim maintenance measures that will preserve the pavement quality index and road function on this section of Terminal Avenue until major pavement rehabilitation is completed in 2018.

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