The Seminary Street widening project, which will widen lanes by about three feet from Seminary to Fremont Street will now be put on hold over the winter.
That’s according to City Engineer Wayne Carl, who says work will start up April 1st and will now be completed by July of next year.
Carl tells WGIL that there just wasn’t enough time left in the season.
“We don’t want to leave drainage to be a concern if we have our gutters out before Winter and that sort of thing, so we’ve elected to postpone the project until after the Winter so that none of the residents are inconvenienced,” says Carl.
Some prep work has already been done. Carl says utility companies have moved various power poles off of the curb to adhere to safety regulations. A new water main has been installed as well.
Carl says work is being done to replace old roadway in need of repair.
“We’re taking off the outside half of the outside lanes on both sides of the road. We’re putting in new concrete pavement on the new outside edges and new curb and gutter, new driveway approaches, and then doing sidewalk repairs where needed. We are then going to overlay the whole roadway with three inches of hot-mix asphalt when all the widening is done.”
The widening project is being done to accommodate bicyclist, even though a formal bike lane will not be put in.