Work is ramping up along a section of Grand Avenue East in Chatham.
Manager of Engineering, Brendan Falkner says crews are preparing the road for a major rehabilitation between Taylor Avenue and Communication Road.
The early stages of the project, currently underway, include preparing catch basins and storm sewers in the area before work ramps up in June or July.
“The next step will be to reconstruct the culvert at Arnold Creek and putting in a temporary bypass. Once the asphalt plants open in May, they’ll do the temporary lanes to detour traffic around.”
Over the summer and fall, crews will replace the curbs on Grand Avenue East, add a left-turn lane at the intersection of Grand and Michener, and install a sidewalk along the south side of the road from the old CSX tracks down to Curran.
“The goal is to get the work done at the culvert, and then start working on the curbs,” Falkner explains. “Throughout construction we’ll be maintaining one lane of traffic in each direction and access to all businesses will be maintained at all times.”
Work on the $6.5 million project is expected to be done by late fall. Roughly half of the cost is being covered through the province’s Connecting Links program.