After months of frustration and detours, the familiar hum of vehicles has returned to Kingston’s LaSalle Causeway.
Originally opened in 1917, the bridge connects downtown Kingston from Slush Puppie Place to the city’s east-end. The causeway reopened on Oct. 3, marking the end of an extended closure that had tested the patience of both locals and military personnel since March 30. The temporary modular bridge is a two-lane truss structure with a dedicated pedestrian sidewalk.
“It’s a real sense of relief, to be honest, being able to walk across the bridge, seeing cars now moving back and forth,” Mayor Bryan Paterson told The Whig.
The Causeway’s century-old Bascule Bridge was damaged during repair work in the spring of 2024. According to a Government of Canada press release, key elements of the bridge structure were significantly damaged and unrepairable, which made it necessary for it to be demolished and removed.
With its closure for urgent repairs earlier this year, drivers, cyclists, residents commuting to work, school, or running errands had to reroute through Highway 401 or the Waaban Crossing—a two-lane crossing connecting Kingston across the Cataraqui River.
The newly fixed two-lane causeway, complete with a separate sidewalk, is built to handle legal, unrestricted traffic, ensuring both cars and pedestrians can safely cross without the bottlenecks that typically come with temporary infrastructure.
“It’s been such a long road for our community over the last number of months and a lot of people that have been very, very patient and obviously understanding with some real challenges,” Paterson said.
The causeway will close again on Oct. 15 and Nov. 16 while the temporary bridge is lifted out of place to permit larger marine traffic to through the Inner Harbour.
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