Staff
Motorists irked by detours can rest easy–the reconstruction of one block of Second Street East from Mowat Avenue to Portage won’t start for another couple of months.
Bay City Contractors will be doing two projects in town this summer, but first will be working on Nelson Street before getting to Second Street East in early to mid-August, Operations and Facilities manager Travis Rob told the Times.
The contractor is slated to mobilize on Nelson Street next week and start digging during the week of June 19.
It will be tearing up the road and then replacing the in-ground infrastructure from the Mosher Avenue intersection to 100 metres westward.
Weather permitting, the project is expected to be complete in early August.
Bay City then will turn its attention to the Second Street East job, which is scheduled to be completed by Sept. 23, although weather delays “are a very real possibility,” Rob warned.
He explained the order the projects are being done in mainly has to do with paving.
Paving contractor Pioneer Construction only will be able to come here once to do both jobs. As a result, Bay City will finish up work on Nelson Street and leave it with a gravel surface.
Rob noted Nelson Street has very low traffic volume, so the contractor won’t have to expend a lot of energy and resources until Pioneer arrives.
If Bay City did Second Street East first, and it was left as gravel for a month-and-a-half, they would have to do dust suppression and be grading it all of the time.
Both jobs will be complete overhauls, which means they will include tearing up the roads, replacing sewer, water, and storm sewer infrastructure, and then rebuilding the roads, gutters, and sidewalks.
Rob said neither job should pose too much of an inconvenience for motorists because in both cases, the adjacent intersections already have been worked on in the recent past and won’t be closed.
As previously reported, Pioneer Construction is here this week to put the finishing touches to the Colonization Road East project done mainly by Makkinga Contracting and Equipment Rentals last year.
Pioneer first will be paving the bike path along the La Verendrye Parkway (from Scott Street to Elizabeth), as well as the island at the intersection of Scott Street and Colonization Road East.
Then they’ll put down the second lift of asphalt on the roadway.
The road will not be closed. Instead, flagmen will direct traffic through.
But parking on the street will be prohibited during the paving work, which is expected to take about a week to complete.
