Downtown paving pushed back to end of October

Since February, the bumpy ride on Albert and Regent Streets has been compounded by street closures due to construction work in anticipation of the upgrading of the downtown area. And over the weekend when a grader rolled into town and streets were once again blocked off, residents watched with excitement as it appeared that the City Council was going to keep its promise to have the area paved in time for the Independence Day celebrations. On Saturday, a film of tar was layered from Church Street to Prince Street and Registry Lane to South Street and then quarry dust was manually spread over the area. But according to Deputy Mayor Anthony Michael, the works are only the preliminary phase of the actual hot mix paving… and while those will be completed by September twenty-first, the promised paving will have to wait a little while longer.

Anthony Michael, Deputy Mayor
“When this soak in, probably within the next twelve to fourteen hours or something like that, it should eliminate the dust right now. It is called a sealant. We need the sealant to be done in order to prevent moisture from coming up and also for the preparation of the hot mix, which should be done very, very shortly.”

Duane Moody
“How soon can the people expect the streets to be paved?”

Anthony Michael
“This first stage, the resealing of this should be completed for the twenty-first celebration. According to the engineers, it is best to have the sidewalk completed first in order for us to do the paving of Albert and Regent. We figure, in the next month or so they should have the sidewalks completed and after that the hot mix if the weather permits and everything is fine.”

The final stage of the paving is laying down the hot mix which will take only three days. The delay, however, is to allow Maheia’s United time to complete the sidewalks. Michael optimistically expects that the streets will be completely paved no later than the end of October.