Reinforced Earth® Walls for Highway 407 East Phase 2

The Government-owned Highway 407 East (407E) P2 project is an extension of the original 108 km-long 407 Express Toll Route in the province of Ontario, the first electronic toll highway in the world. This public-private partnership (P3) project was undertaken to provide an efficient east-west corridor across central Ontario. It is one of the largest highway construction projects ever in the province. The extension of Highway 407E Phase 2 (P2) is approximately 22 kilometres in length, beginning at Harmony Road in Oshawa to Highway 35/115 in Clarington, and a 10-kilometre north-south connection of Highway 401 to Highway 407 by way of Highway 418. Phase 2 is a Design-Build-Finance-Maintain project which links major interchanges and eases congestion of the highly trafficked 400-series highways in the Greater Toronto Area. Since 2016, Reinforced Earth Company Canada has contributed their experience, knowledge, and expertise in the design and supply of MSE walls to deliver a successful major project. RECo’s scope of the 407E P2 work is approximately 22,000 m2 of Reinforced Earth®  walls distributed throughout 36 structures, which consist of wing walls, mixed abutments and other structures, including a wall considered to be under submerged conditions. The largest wall with respect to the surface area is 3,000m2 and the tallest in terms of height is 11 m. The Reinforced Earth® techniques that continue to be utilized within this project are the TerraClass® and TerraTrel® systems which implement galvanized steel soil reinforcing strips. Due to the tight construction schedule and to achieve the many milestones of the project, it was deemed necessary to accelerate the fabrication process of the precast panels on two separate occasions. The whole Highway 407 extension and Highway 418 is opened to traffic in 2020.