THUNDER BAY – A lack of senior government funding for road work could delay the next stage of Balmoral Street reconstruction.
Kayla Dixon, the city’s director of engineering and operations, on Wednesday said the next stage of upgrades on the arterial roadway likely won’t happen until 2019.
“We’re not seeing a lot of asphalt funding coming forward from either the provincial or federal governments,” Dixon said.
“We are putting the Golf Links next phase of reconstruction forward for council’s deliberation in the 2018 budget. The next phase of Balmoral being another large reconstruction project will get pushed into 2019.”
The Balmoral Street work, which is estimated at $4.9 million, would run from Hewitson Street north to Alloy Drive and includes a reconstruction of the intersection at Harbour Expressway that would create double left turn lanes.
Last year, work was done on the road from the McIntyre River to Hewitson Street at a cost of $4.2 million. The project was initially planned to extend up to Alloy Drive but the scope was reduced after estimates increased based on added costs for water runoff management and roadside trails.
In the meantime, Dixon said there will be extensive patching done on Balmoral Street through the Harbour Expressway intersection this year as an interim measure.
“We wanted to make sure we could replace the riding surface on Balmoral at that intersection until we can schedule that work going forward,” Dixon said.
The Balmoral Street reconstruction was originally conceived as a multiple phase plan that once complete would have the rebuilt roadway with separated multi-use paths on each side stretch from the McIntyre River to Beverly Street.
The final phase of the Golf Links Road and Junot Avenue widening extends from John Street to Walkover Avenue and is budgeted at $3.5 million.
That would cap off four-laning of the roadway extending south to the Harbour Expressway that began in 2012.
Both projects would be subject to council approval during next year's budget deliberation process.
