By Seth DuChene
Editor
Bad weather has delayed the first phase of the Dundas Street reconstruction process, says Lennox and Addington County Manager of Roads and Bridges Chris Wagar — but not by much.
“We’re a little bit behind schedule, I’d say like a week or so, just due to the amount of rain that we’ve had earlier this year and continue to have,” he told the Beaver in a telephone interview on Tuesday. “The contractor is doing what they can to try to catch up, and they haven’t anticipated any major delays, so they’re still shooting for the end of October to have that project completed.”
But while that project won’t be done until the end of October, local residents will see progress in the short-term. Wagar says that the Dundas Street and Robert Street intersection is currently being prepared for sidewalk installation and paving, and should be reopened to traffic by the end of next week — something which should make a difference for those trying to get around downtown. “Right now, they have to turn around (on Dundas Street) or they have to exit through the parking lot at the rear of the Campbell House. By opening up the Robert Street block, it’s going to allow people to do complete loops and approach the parking spaces the way they should under normal driving conditions,” said Wagar.
He also said that the lights at the intersection of Dundas and Centre streets are close to being installed as well, barring any unforeseen delays. “We’ve had a little bit of delay with the controller for the traffic lights which is why that intersection is still set up as a four-way stop,” he said. “We can’t energize that until we get the controller installed, which hopefully will be next week.”
Starting this week, the Dundas Street project wasn’t the only construction that was causing disruption. Work crews also began resurfacing Centre Street from Dundas Street to the River Road/Palace Road intersection on Monday.
“It’s resurfacing, just to hold the road in a better state of condition without putting too much money into it so we can sync up and reconstruct the road when the town plans to reconstruct their (underground) infrastructure,” said Wagar. “We just didn’t want to spend a lot of money on the road now to dig it up in say 12 years when the town may be looking at replacing that. So, we’re just trying to get 10 to 15 years out of what we’re doing now… The lifespan of our road (resurfacing) expires when the lifespan of the underground infrastructure expires.”
Wagar said that the resurfacing on Centre Street should be finished by the end of next week.