Duane Hicks
The 200 block of Scott Street will be closed to vehicle traffic tomorrow and Thursday in order to do some prep work for the installation of new sidewalks starting next week.
Operations and Facilities manager Travis Rob said this window of time will allow contractors to safely remove the trees on the block, as well as also install curbing on the front of the Rainy Lake Square site.
The section of sidewalk directly in front of the site will extend outward onto the street.
RML Contracting of Thunder Bay also has started removing bricks on a portion of the 200 block.
Then starting Monday, subcontractor Precision Paving will be here to being installing paving stones–starting at the southwest portion of the 200 block of Scott Street (from the CIBC up to the Rainy Lake Square site).
The paving stone work will be done in four quarters (work will progress one quarter at a time).
“RML will essentially strip and prep a quarter while Precision is laying the stone in a quarter,” explained Rob.
“So there will always be essentially half the street that’s being worked on.
“But they’ll be working as quickly as possible to get through all four quadrants of the downtown,” he added.
Precision Paving installed the new paving stones at the Civic Centre last month. Rob was impressed by their work and anticipates the same level of professionalism and efficiency on the Scott Street job.
“They’re extremely fast,” he remarked. “They can just go to town and get working on it, and move through the whole downtown.
“By the end of a couple of weeks, everything’s back to normal,” added Rob, noting the sidewalk replacement is scheduled to take about three weeks in all.
During this entire time, RML Contracting will ensure pedestrians will be able to access downtown businesses via ramps.
Some parking spaces will be closed temporarily to give contractors space to move around, a place to store paving stones, and at times allow pedestrians to move around the sidewalk work.
The new paving stones will be exactly like the ones installed at the town hall.
The colour and materials are intended to tie the sidewalks aesthetically into the future Rainy Lake Square.
The trees on the 200 block are being removed to mitigate problems caused by their roots both above and below ground.
