SUBMITTED PHOTO A layer of asphalt paving with new concrete curbs and sidewalks at First Street SW and Second Avenue.
The city expects to reopen First Street to traffic within a week or two following a summer of work replacing deep utilities.
gslade@medicinehatnews.com@MHNGillianSlade
The city says First Street will reopen to traffic within a week or two following a summer of replacing infrastructure that required closing sections of the street to traffic.
Since late September First Street SW has been closed to traffic from First Avenue to Chinook Drive.
“We are working feverishly to open up First Street,” said Cody Hyam, construction superintendent, environmental utilities department for the city.
An early and heavy snowfall this year affected the target for completion. More snow this week may create further delay, he said.
These challenges have resulted in a few aspects of the project not being completed but will have to be addressed next spring through a sub-contractor, said Hyam.
These include a proposed asphalt surface by the community mailboxes at Second Avenue and First Street and the enhanced trail from the same area toward Chinook Drive. Efforts have been made to make the trail temporarily accessible but if this cannot be maintained through winter there is the potential that the trail will be closed until spring, said Hyam.
The large-scale project commenced in June. First Street was closed from the library and continued block by block to replace water and sanitary sewer mains, damaged storm sewer catch basins, concrete curbs and gutters where required and improvements to pedestrian sidewalks.
“The big portion of work has been completed,” said Hyam, noting the project is only slightly later in terms of completion than anticipated.
The weather was just one of the complications with an early snowfall and then more snow recently, he said. Because both asphalt and concrete are temperature dependent it was important to reach a paving stage before winter set in.
“We got in our asphalt on the 200 block … just in time. We did squeak it in,” said Hyam.
More recently the contractor has been working weekends as well to meet the demand.
“They were putting in on average around 50 hours a week – 54 hours typically,” said Hyam.
Throughout the process when they were taking weekends off they were still putting is 12-hour shifts Monday to Friday, said Hyam.
“The contractor performed well on this project,” he said.
The stretch of First Street where the work has been carried out is known for wildlife activity.
“They tested our fences a lot,” said Hyam. “They would walk down the sidewalks and check out the fence.”
There were no instances of deer getting into any of the excavated areas but at times they did manage to get on the wrong side of the temporary fencing. Workers simply opened a section of fencing and the deer walked away.
“The deer have actually been fairly accommodating,” said Hyam.
Hyam says he is grateful to the public for the co-operation of all the residents that were affected this summer.
“They’ve just been incredibly understanding and very accommodating. We certainly appreciate that,” said Hyam.
