After a tough winter that left a number of roads in rough shape, as well as a number of other projects on the go, the City of Estevan has a busy spring and summer construction season ahead of them.
In an interview Monday, city manager Jim Puffalt said repairing Highway 47 through Estevan, as well as other trouble spots, remains their top priority. As The Mercury reported previously, the City and province had reached a verbal agreement to split the costs of repaving the north leg of Highway 47 as well as Sixth Street from 13th Avenue to Souris Avenue.
Puffalt said the City was expecting to hear from the provincial Ministry of Highways on Monday about what exactly will be covered in the agreement. He added that once the agreement is complete, they will enter the tendering process and he expects construction should begin in roughly six weeks.
"We are going quickly on this trying to figure out what is eligible and what is not and what is the best use of money," Puffalt said. "Nobody wants to do a patch job that is only going to get us through a year. We are looking at all the aspects such as drainage, we want to make sure there is enough elevation to get the water moving. There are a number of issues to look at."
Puffalt said the City and province are looking at repairing areas of the road base to ensure the pavement stands up for up to 10 years.
In the meantime, he added that crews will be out doing everything they can within reason to keep Highway 47 somewhat driveable until the full project can begin.
"We want to get the holes filled in so people have a driving surface. It won't be smooth, but it won't be as bad as it was earlier in the spring. Knowing that it's going to get (repaved) we don't want to spend a ton of money on it, but we at least have to give people something to drive on."
Aside from the Highway 47 work, Puffalt said they would also be looking to repair trouble spots on King Street. He added that City crews were also out last week with hot asphalt and will be busy on pothole patrol for the next few weeks.
Another focus for the City will be catching up on projects that are either incomplete or were delayed over the past couple of years.
Most notably is the Estevan Leisure Centre parking lot. A portion of the work was completed last year and Puffalt said crews will be looking to finish the job as soon as possible.
"Once the frost is out of the ground, we'll get the first lift (of asphalt) down and I suspect it will go fairly quickly. It all depends when weather conditions allow us to go," he said.
Other jobs on the schedule are an asphalt overlay on Duncan Road, Souris Avenue and Alexandria Avenue. There are also plans to do water and sewer mains on two more blocks of Sixth Street with an eye towards repaving the gravel portion of the road in 2014.
They will also be rebuilding Kensington Avenue from King Street to the Bienfait grid road, repaving some of the runways at the City airport and also repaving Woodlawn Avenue south.
Puffalt said those last three jobs will also be funded by the Provincial Disaster Assistance Program as each area suffered damage during the flooding of 2011. He added that the Kensington Avenue project will be a particularly big job as the road needs to be rebuilt and part of the hill adjacent to the Estevan Comprehensive School will have to be removed to improve sightlines in the area.
"Council has decided to finish off all the outstanding projects we have so that is what we are going to do. Highway 47 being thrown in; it just had to be done. That road wasn't going to last anymore."
