page_title: Anthony Henday Drive
section_title: North construction and completion
hierarchical_section_title: Anthony Henday Drive / History / North construction and completion
caption_attribution_description: English: Construction of two bridges carrying Anthony Henday Drive over the North Saskatchewan River in northeast Edmonton.
context_page_description: Anthony Henday Drive is a 78-kilometre freeway that encircles Edmonton, Alberta. It is a heavily travelled commuter and truck bypass route with the southwest quadrant serving as a portion of the CANAMEX Corridor that links Canada to the United States and Mexico. Henday is one of the busiest highways in Western Canada, carrying over 108,000 vehicles per day in 2019 at its busiest point near West Edmonton Mall. Rush hour congestion is common on the four-lane section in southwest Edmonton where traffic levels have doubled Alberta Transportation estimates due to rapid suburban development. Work began in fall 2019 to widen this section to six lanes by the end of 2022.
  Calgary Trail in south Edmonton is designated as the starting point of the ring, with exit numbers increasing clockwise as the freeway proceeds across the North Saskatchewan River to the Cameron Heights neighbourhood, then north past Whitemud Drive, Stony Plain Road and Yellowhead Trail to St. Albert. It continues east past 97 Street to Manning Drive, then south across the North Saskatchewan River a second time.
context_section_description: Construction of an interim segment from Yellowhead Trail in the west to 137 Avenue was the first to be completed, as part of St. Albert's Ray Gibbon Drive project.  Full work on the entire 21 km (13 mi) of the northwest leg from Yellowhead Trail to Manning Drive (Highway 15) was initiated in early 2008 after Alberta's signing of a $1.42 billion P3 agreement with Northwestconnect General Partnership to build and maintain the road for 30 years.  Construction began in September 2008, described by then Premier Ed Stelmach as "an important step in meeting our provincial goal of completing the ring roads to a freeway status by 2015."  The project included the construction of two large cloverstack interchanges, one each at Yellowhead Trail and Manning Drive. Seven other smaller interchanges were also constructed, as well as five flyovers and two rail crossings.  Three lanes each way were built from Yellowhead Trail to Campbell Road, and two lanes each way from Campbell Road to Manning Drive.  All work was completed on time, and the leg opened to traffic on November 1, 2011.
  In May 2012, Alberta signed a $1.81 billion P3 contract with Capital City Link General Partnership to build and maintain the final 9-kilometre (5.6 mi) northeast segment of Anthony Henday Drive for 30 years after construction, from Manning Drive to Yellowhead Trail east of Edmonton in Strathcona County.  A sod turning ceremony was held on July 16 and construction was underway, at the time the largest transportation project in the history of the province. Significant reconstruction was done to the existing section of the road east of Edmonton from Yellowhead Trail south to Highway 14 that had been in place since at least the early 1960s.  It was formerly known as Highway 14X, the "X" denoting that the route was an extension of Highway 14.  Prior to the completion of Whitemud Drive at the end of the 1990s, Highway 14 followed a more northerly alignment through Edmonton on Sherwood Park Freeway.
  As part of the reconstruction, several bridges constructed between 1965 and 1974 were demolished.  They spanned Anthony Henday Drive at Yellowhead Trail, Baseline Road and Sherwood Park Freeway and were removed to make way for updated structures that would allow the freeway underneath to be widened to six lanes and further expanded to eight lanes or more in the future.  A bridge built in 1969 carrying Broadmoor Boulevard over Yellowhead Trail was also demolished because it was not at the required elevation for the new interchange configuration.  Yellowhead Trail from the North Saskatchewan River to Clover Bar Road was significantly improved and widened, as was Sherwood Park Freeway from 17 Street to Ordze Road/Crescent in Sherwood Park.
  Overall, the project included the construction of nine interchanges, two road flyovers, eight rail flyovers, and twin bridges over the North Saskatchewan River for a total of 47 bridge structures, and the demolition of 13 existing bridges.  An extensive environmental assessment was also completed which identified the need for a wildlife crossing at the river, which was constructed.  Noise analysis based on projected traffic volumes was also completed.  The complex interchange at Yellowhead Trail includes several braided ramps, connections to adjacent roads, and is bisected by a railway line. On October 1, 2016, the northeast leg of the freeway was officially opened to traffic.
  Major construction on Sherwood Park Freeway and Yellowhead Trail was also largely complete including all new lanes and ramps.  Only minor aesthetic work remained such as landscaping, completion of mechanically stabilized earth walls, and painting of wing walls, piers, and abutments.
caption: Berms were used for construction of bridges over the environmentally sensitive North Saskatchewan River in northeast Edmonton, first on the river's south bank, then the north bank seen here in 2014.
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