THUNDER BAY — After 14 months of detouring around a broken culvert on River Street, it could still be another month before traffic is flowing smoothly again along the full length of the four-lane arterial road.
A construction crew working to replace a damaged culvert reached a milestone in the project on Wednesday when they began to assemble the components of its replacement.
With new concrete footings all cured, a crane arrived to lift sections of a new steel arch into place over McVicar Creek.
City project engineer Mike Vogrig said crews were starting the process of bolting the pieces together, and that they should be able to complete multiple sections of the arch each day.
But even when that stage of the work is over, Vogrig said there's more to be done, meaning that the entire project won't be finished before mid-July at the earliest.
"There's a lot of work backfilling around the culvert. It takes a lot of time. You have to go in small lifts, making sure you don't deform the culvert, making sure the compaction is really good. I'm still hoping for mid-to-end of July to be complete."
Although he cautioned that weather conditions in the coming weeks could still cause additional delays, he suggested that the end of next month is a realistic target for reopening River Street.
