Glendale Avenue road construction ahead of schedule
Work on Glendale Avenue is expected to be completed months ahead of schedule, and long before the Christmas shopping season hits the busy retail district.
Niagara Region project manager Cameron Milne said work on the nearly $4-million project began in May and was expected to take eight months to complete.
But after only a few months of work, the project is already about 50 per cent done.
“It’s moving a long quite well … We’re actually ahead of schedule.”
He said Rankin Construction has already installed a “fairly major” watermain, new curbs and traffic medians and completed road widening along Glendale Avenue, between Burleigh Hill and Tremont drives.
Most of the work was done at night to avoid disrupting “one of the heaviest volumes of traffic in the region,” Milne said.
“Going into it, we knew that was going to be an issue so we thought about nighttime work. Luckily, because it’s mainly commercial, we were able to do it.”
Besides not contributing to traffic headaches for motorists, working at night also minimized the impact on local businesses “and made it easier for the contractor as well.”
The contractor was also able to minimize the excavations required for the project.
“A lot of the existing road base and asphalt we were able to retain, and for that reason it’s not the major construction we have on most of our projects.”
Although Milne said there is still a lot of work to complete including street lights, several traffic signals, and new sidewalks being installed for the City of St. Catharines, the project will likely be completed by early or mid- October — rather than December.
“We certainly wanted to make sure we avoided any construction when the Christmas season started down there,” Milne said.