Workers dig up small sections of Second Street West as part of the road patching work ongoing in Kindersley. Crews have begun to patch the road with fresh asphalt, and they will be doing other road patching and paving projects on Sixth Avenue West and 12th Avenue East while they are in town.
Kenneth Brown
of The Clarion
An asphalt paving contractor is in Kindersley working on roads across town. Paving crews have been patching roads while they work on larger projects.
Kim Vogel, the town’s director of transportation and environment, said the pavers arrived in Kindersley July 17. The main paving work takes place on Sixth Avenue West and 12th Avenue East.
The pavers were waiting for a piece of equipment to arrive on July 20 before they began working on Sixth Avenue, but Vogel said the crews would be patching sections of road around town while they waited for the machine. The road had to be milled before it was paved and the machine would do the milling work.
Vogel said crews were first going to patch areas along Main Street where the town’s new traffic lights were installed and then focus on Sixth Avenue. The patching was planned to continue during other projects around town.
The town has also announced that traffic lights will be added to the new poles at each of the Main Street intersections to help pedestrians. The existing lights have been difficult for pedestrians to see at different angles, so the extra lights should help.
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After paving crews finish work on the 100, 200 and 300 blocks of Sixth Avenue, they will start work on 12th Avenue East. Vogel said the pavers are resurfacing 12th Avenue from Main Street to C Street.
She noted that residents of Sixth Avenue have been waiting for the street to be paved since the sidewalk, curb and gutter work started at the beginning of June, so there has been some inconvenience. However, she said the residents “will finally have some nice infrastructure when it’s done.”
The pavers were scheduled to work straight through on Sixth Avenue before moving on to 12th Avenue. The pavers are only resurfacing 12th Avenue, so the work should move along quickly. There will be an inconvenience to businesses in the area.
“There will be some inconvenience to the business owners along 12th Avenue, as well as motorists who are going to the businesses,” she explained, adding that officials hope motorists will be able to use alternate routes to get to locations on the service road.
Vogel said it is hoped motorists will be able to use 13th Avenue to access businesses along the road. People could access 13th Avenue East from Third Street East near the Shell service station, or from the Kindersley Mall parking lot.
Semis will not be able to park on the south side of 12th Avenue, so the drivers will have to find alternate places to park their trucks.
The project on 12th Avenue will include work to widen and build up the shoulder of the road to give more room to semis for parking. Vogel said the shoulder will be wider and it should keep semis from parking on the asphalt. The pavers are expected to finish working in town before going out to work at the airport.
She noted that a concrete contractor was in town recently completing repairs where cracks formed in the new sidewalks, curbs and gutters. The traffic light project created extra work for the concrete contractor.
Vogel said two curb extensions were built at the intersection of Main Street and Second Avenue. The curb extensions were needed because the bases of the new light poles are wider than the previous poles, so more space was required. Curb extensions will also help to slow traffic and improve sight lines for motorists, she added.
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