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68th Avenue construction to stretch into next spring

Work on the twinning project of 68th Avenue will not be finished this fall as anticipated.

Capital planning and construction manager with the city of Grande Prairie Matt Hinton explains that there will be some work continuing into the spring on 2017 which includes the intersection at 100th Street, landscaping and the pathway on the south side of the road from Poplar Drive to 108th Street.

“Right now, our plan is to open up four lanes from Kateri Drive to 108th Street and the same thing with Poplar Drive to 100th Street. We want to open up as many lanes as we can. We know there will be a portion that will just be two lanes.”

He explains that the new portion of the bridge will not be usable for the winter which brings a small transition road from Kateri Drive to the bridge. Drivers will continue with two way traffic on the existing bridge. Hinton says their hope is that another transition into four lane traffic will be east just after 100th Street but there is potential that the transition could be closer to the Country Club Plaza further down 68th Avenue.

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The entire project was proposed to be complete by October 31st, 2016 but Hinton says due to wet weather, it has made it tough to make that deadline.

“If we had a sunny summer, the contractor could have been done a lot sooner. We have had an unfortunately very wet summer which has caused some delays in the project.”

He adds that out of the 103 possible working days on the project so far this year, there has been 52 rain days which halts work. For not completing on the date in their contract, the construction contractors will be charged a penalty.

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