With the graveling of 5th Ave. by the post office, work on that section is done until it is paved next summer.
Peter Bergquist with the city said the water main and repaving plan originally included part of 7th St. up to Highway 5 but that was scrapped when it was discovered that costs would be too high to do the full scale of the project.
“The tender results were significantly higher so we actually cancelled that program and revised the scope so changed the size of the project we were going to do,” Bergquist said.
The current project stays within budget and that included the graveling of 5th Ave. to keep it open during the winter months and make the road ready for paving.
Fifth Ave. saw the replacement of the 100 year old, six inch cast iron water line with new eight inch PVC piping, which will help with water flow.
That section of the avenue was in bad shape, so it was the perfect road to work on.
“That was a good candidate to rip up, replace it and make nice and new next year,” he said.
He added that they left as much asphalt as possible to make road work easier in the summer when the road is paved and make driving easier in the high traffic area in front of the post office.
A 2009 traffic study indicated that the intersection of 5th Ave. and Main St. should be realigned. The current work that has been done on 5th has taken that realignment into account, since the project had to include curb replacement.
“We wanted to do the realigning so we know where to put the curbs because the curbs have to be replaced along that section because they were in pretty tough shape,” he said.
The city has a preliminary design which would see a section of the north end parking lot turned into roadway and curve back onto the west side of 5th.
“It would just be a section to make it bend and curve in so the intersection would be safer (and) better truck/train movements is what we’re looking to achieve because the corners are pretty sharp,” he said.
The city will also be budgeting for traffic signals that may be needed at that intersection.
