It’s a hub of construction at Cundles Road and Duckworth Street.

There are several road upgrades happening including two new highway overpasses. Many say they’re willing to put up with the construction headaches for the much needed improvements.

Construction on the $42-million project began last fall. Crews are currently widening Cundles to four lanes and will begin paving the road over the next two weeks. The same will be done on Duckworth. Work has also started to re-align the two roads and two new highway overpasses – one for the southbound lanes and another for the northbound lanes.

“It will open traffic immensely through the area in particular with the college and hospital,” says Robert Wargala, Barrie's senior construction engineer.

He says the project is on schedule but there is still a lot of work to be done.

“We're about 13 per cent complete,” he says.

Most of the work is currently being done on the highway overpasses where crews are building the foundation and center piers for the southbound overpass.

“Next year they’re going to be transferring southbound traffic onto the new bridge and also transfer northbound traffic,” he says.

That means crews will be able to tear down the old bridge.

Another new overpass is being built at the Highway 400 and 11 split.

That $8.5-million project started more than a year ago and the Ministry of Transportation  expects it to be done next summer.

 The MTO says sometime in the fall, Highway 11 in that area will shut down overnight as crews begin to demolish the old bridge

Most of the road upgrades on Cundles and Duckwork are expected to be completed this year but the city says drivers won't be able to use all of the improvements until the new overpasses are built, which is schedule to be done by November 2016.