A familiar view on the main road through town continues to change by the minute.
As of this morning (April 17), nearly half of the concrete overpass on Algonquin Boulevard has been demolished as part of this year's Connecting Link work.
Demolishing the bridge was expected to take two to three weeks and the project is now in its third week. Once it's gone, the road will be levelled out.
Here's what the overpass looked like this morning:
![2024-04-17-overpass3mh](https://www.vmcdn.ca/f/files/timminstoday/images/city-of-timmins/2024-04-17-overpass3mh.jpg;w=960)
Yesterday afternoon, this was the scene:
![2024-04-16-overpass4mh](https://www.vmcdn.ca/f/files/timminstoday/images/city-of-timmins/2024-04-16-overpass4mh.jpg;w=960)
Tuesday morning is when people could really see the progress of the project as crews started visibly breaking through the concrete. Yesterday morning, it looked like this:
![2024-04-16-overpassdemo4mh](https://www.vmcdn.ca/f/files/timminstoday/images/city-of-timmins/2024-04-16-overpassdemo4mh.jpg;w=960)
This year's main Connecting Link work is being done from Balsam to Brunette.
The Algonquin Boulevard road closure now starts at Balsam and extends to Brunette Road.
Crews are removing asphalt through the downtown section, but there is a pedestrian crossing at Pine Street.
The sidewalks on Algonquin will be open and safely blocked from the active construction area.
![2024-04-17-grindingmh](https://www.vmcdn.ca/f/files/timminstoday/images/city-of-timmins/2024-04-17-grindingmh.jpg;w=960)
The construction work means detours for traffic.
The detour around the work is Brunette Road, Second Avenue and Mountjoy Street. The four-way stop intersections on Second Avenue at Balsam and Spruce are staying as is this year. There are also temporary stop lights that are flashing at Second and Brunette, which means it's working as a three-way stop.
For heavy truck traffic, the detour goes around the downtown core.
The route is Highway 655, Laforest Road, Airport Road, Lafleur and Shirley.
The other Connecting Link projects this year are on the bridges at Porcupine River and Mattagami River.
For this work, the city expects there will be temporary lane reductions starting sometime in May.