Sandwich roundabout opens

By Todd Shearon

The Detroit River isn’t the only thing flowing under the Ambassador Bridge: so is traffic.

The long-awaited end to detours is finally over for commuters as the new Sandwich Street roundabout is now open.

Originally, construction was scheduled to be completed by Sept. 1 but was delayed when a 100-year-old trolley track and older Indigenous artifacts were found, launching an ongoing archeological dig.

“This project was not supposed to be staged like this,” said City of Windsor project administrator Tiffany Pocock. “But due to the archeological findings and work we are going to have to stretch it over two construction seasons.”

Construction is currently at a halt until spring due to colder temperatures not allowing concrete to properly cure.

Asphalt patches will cover the unpaved sidewalk areas until construction resumes and will be replaced with stamped concrete.

For business owners like Nick Papadatos of Nick’s Auto Clinic, who is inconveniently sandwiched at the pinch point of Riverside Drive and University Avenue, it was mostly logistical effects.

“It was like going from chaos to no chaos in 24 hours after five months of chaos,” Papadatos said. “On the last day it unceremoniously went away.”

According to Papadatos, it was tough working around the fences, holes in the road, construction vehicles, construction workers and archeologists, but it wasn’t hard on the business for the entire five months and created no losses.

Although work on the roundabout site continues in the spring, a final completion date is still unknown.

“We’re going to do what we need to do to finish in the spring,” said Pocock. “However, the archeologist has to come back and dig all the sidewalk areas on the north side.”

There is no way to guess how long it will take to complete the archeological digging and it will also depend on what they find.