Stony plain road bridge opens as west Edmonton braces for continued construction in 2025

The roadblocks are gone and Edmonton’s Stony Plain Road bridge is open.

But as this two-year road closure ends, there are still traffic headaches ahead before the Valley Line West LRT can take passengers. Construction on the line continues until sometime in 2028, only then can testing begin, which has no concrete timeline. 

Replacing the bridge over Groat Road is a major milestone, done on time.

“Whenever I have to head Central West, it will cut maybe 10 minutes, fifteen minutes off my drive,” said Myron.

And commuters are already counting the potential minutes saved driving into downtown, on the now one-lane road in each direction, to make room for the future LRT.

“At least half an hour, at least. Right now it’s not that busy, but as I said, during the traffic hour,” said Aleisha.

“I try to completely avoid this area, just because there is never any way to get through,” Sunny added.

Wrapping up what has been a difficult year for Stony Plain Road, with on and off again road closures west of 142nd Street.

“One time I tried to get to this coffee shop, and I think it took 15 minutes zig-zagging around all of the roads to get here,” said Sunny.

But west Edmonton commuters won’t see clear roads straight ahead, yet.

“That has been the feedback, short-term pain is preferable to long-term, so we are looking at that very closely,” said Jonathan Cox, a construction manager of Marigold Infrastructure Partners.

Construction on Stony Plain Road around 149 Street to 156, switching from the south side to the north. Marigold vowing to have it done in one construction season.

“The impact on the city generally, is the same. But, what we are going to do now is complete the work in a more reliable time frame and get through it,” said Cox.

Unrelated to the LRT, the City plans to replace the Wellington Bridge, starting in late 2025, cutting off 102 Avenue.

“Had to make sure we had this done so we didn’t have this road closed at the same time as Wellington, and that’s done. But again, we have to hopefully ask for patience of the commuters as the city embarks on yet another project,” said Brian Latte, the director of Valley Line.

The Wellington Bridge construction is expected to last one year.