THUNDER BAY – The city has closed the section of Red River Road between St. Paul and Court streets to finish off the final details on the Reimagining the North Core Streetscapes project.
What’s left to be done is final paving, placement of street furniture, and various electrical, street lighting, and traffic signal improvements, said Brian Newman, senior project engineer with the City of Thunder Bay.
He says the project is expected to last six to eight weeks, but that is dependant on the weather.
“The biggest thing with this process is the paver stone that's on top of a mud slab for vehicular traffic, but it goes on top of a granular base. Because of that, if it rains, it's a little bit hard to work with. So, six to eight weeks to get this portion done to get the road reopened - that's our game plan,” said Newman.
While work is being done to get the road ready for regular traffic, Newman said they will be working on other amenities such as planting trees and perennials, setting up garbage cans and bike racks, and installing benches.
Newman said although construction is happening at the moment, members of the public will still have enough room to walk through the site and attend many of the restaurants, bars, and entertainment venues in the area.
“The big message I like to send is there's parking all throughout the area - parkades, side streets, there's plenty of parking. The street itself is going to be down like I said, six to eight weeks, but they are occupied and they're running full steam ahead, so feel free to park on the offside streets,” said Newman.
Once this project is complete, Newman says they will begin the Cumberland street roundabout and “construction in the city is going to start ramping up.”
“This is an early start. Like you don't normally see April for this type of work, but this is the type of work that can get started early. We have some other contracts in the city just getting rolling now, so you'll start seeing stuff rolling along,” said Newman.
