It was one collision that brought the city of Ottawa to a crawl.
A pickup truck collided with a cube van in the eastbound lanes of highway 417 near Belfast Rd., Tuesday morning.
The driver of the pickup truck had to be extricated from the vehicle and was taken to hospital with serious injuries to her arm and pelvic area.
“One of the trucks involved had its fuel tanks punctured and the diesel it was carrying spilled out on the roadway we had to close down the lanes,” says Const. Rheal Levac of the Ontario Provincial Police.
The two-lane reduction caused a ripple effect extending west beyond the junction with Highway 416.
Many drivers abandoning the traffic jam at Woodroffe Ave.
“It’s pretty bad, I was supposed to be somewhere at 10:30…I’ll be lucky if I get there by 11,” says one frustrated driver.
Compounding the issue is heavy road construction throughout the city of Ottawa.
The section of highway 417 is already undergoing a major expansion to take on bus traffic when the light rail project takes over the transitway. That construction isn’t expected to be completed until the fall of 2015.
Resurfacing on Carling Ave. and other major roads also made matters worse by limiting detour options.
Ontario Provincial Police say with all the construction going on this summer, traffic headaches like this are far from over.
With a report from CTV’s John Hua.
