What is the Parkway?
The Rt. Hon. Herb Gray Parkway (the Parkway) is an 11 kilometre, $1.4 billion highway infrastructure project located in the municipalities of Windsor, LaSalle, and Tecumseh, in Ontario, Canada. This once-in-a-generation undertaking will improve traffic flow at Canada’s premier trade gateway, and is unprecedented in its community enhancement and environmental features for any highway, anywhere in Ontario.
The Rt. Hon. Herb Gray Parkway includes three essential components:
- a six-lane extension of Highway 401 that runs below-grade from the area west of the North Talbot Road Bridge to E.C. Row Expressway and then parallel to E.C. Row Expressway to Ojibway Parkway
- a four-lane extension of Highway 3 including the multi-lane roundabout to the area of E.C. Row Expressway where it links into Huron Church Road
- the Parkway Trail running approximately 17 kilometres is set within more that 120 hectares (300 acres) of green space situated alongside the two highway extensions and across the 11 tunnel tops.
The Parkway allows for the safe and efficient movement of people, goods and services along the 401 corridor, while separating local and international traffic, and has eliminated stop-and-go traffic in residential areas along its route. In the near future, the Parkway will connect the 401 directly to a new Canadian inspection plaza and the Gordie Howe International Bridge.
Construction of the Parkway began in 2011 and the final stretch road network opened to traffic on November 21, 2015. The construction of the Parkway created an estimated 12,000 jobs through direct employment from construction activities and indirectly through numerous suppliers and service providers. The majority of these jobs were in the Windsor-Essex region.