THUNDER BAY — A section of High Street that’s been closed for months is set to reopen to traffic this week, before the year's first significant snowfall is projected to hit the area.
Kayla Dixon, the city's director of engineering and operations, said the several roadwork projects in the area are on track to wrap up.
“Right now, we are looking to have High Street, Crown, and Court Street reopened to traffic by the end of the week and before the snow falls,” she said Tuesday.
The roads will be paved with a base layer, but the “top lift” of asphalt won’t be added until next year, she said.
The stretch of lower High Street between Lisgar and Queen streets had been closed since August as crews replaced a watermain, resurfaced the road, and added new sidewalks between Lisgar and Hester streets on the east side.
The project’s completion date was slightly delayed from late October, with the city citing supply chain challenges.
It’s just one factor that made this year’s construction season particularly challenging, Dixon said.
“Certainly we did have a bit of a late season start with the hard spring thaw that we had, and we did have some supply chain issues through the season, as well as some late funding announcements that pushed our [contract] awards back as well,” she said.
Still, she said the city made important progress.
“We did see a lot of work get done this year — James, Memorial, Arthur. We’ve got some major collectors and arterials that had a lot of work done on them, and they’re already up and running.”
Next year’s construction season is likely to remain challenging, Dixon indicated, with significantly elevated commodity prices expected to continue.
“We expect for example, salt prices will be higher, paint prices will be higher as well — and we’re already seeing that in some of the prices we’re receiving from our suppliers,” she said.
“We’ll see those impacts in the 2023 operating budget, and we’re looking to try to mitigate that.”
