Construction is set to begin this spring on the $76.8-million Keating flyover project, with the new overpass at Highway 17 and Keating Cross Road expected to be in use in two years.
The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure said the detailed design phase is nearing completion and the province has issued a tender for the contract that closes on March 8.
The province has been negotiating with Central Saanich landowners to acquire parts of 17 properties to accommodate the work, including two entire parcels of land and partial slices of 15 other sites.
The northbound left turn onto Keating Cross Road will be replaced with a separated overpass designed to improve access and make the highway safer. The project will also include realigning the southbound on-ramp to Victoria, widening Keating Cross Road and adding sidewalks, as well as the installation of bus-on-shoulder facilities to support future rapid transit on the Pat Bay Highway.
The province has said the flyover design was chosen over a full interchange because it has the smallest footprint of the design options and would require the least amount of land in the agricultural land reserve.
The $76.8-million budget is up sharply from the estimated $44.3-million cost announced in 2019, due to the increased cost of land procurement and construction materials.
The province is contributing $57.6 million of the total project cost, with $16.7 million coming from the federal government and $2.5 million from Central Saanich.
The project, identified in the South Island Transportation Study as a priority, is expected to improve safety and traffic flow, reduce idling times, handle increased traffic demand and improve access to the Keating business and industrial area.
In 2021, the last year for which statistics were available, the intersection of Keating Cross Road and the Pat Bay Highway saw 10 crashes.
There were 49 crashes between 2017 and 2021, ranking it fourth for intersection collisions on the Saanich Peninsula, behind Sidney’s Beacon Avenue and the Pat Bay, which saw 152 crashes over the five-year span, Mount Newton Cross Road and the Pat Bay, which had 134, and Island View Road and the Pat Bay, which saw 95 over the same period.
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