As work to remove the Timmins overpass continues, construction crews are starting other segments of the project soon.
On Monday, April 15, the Algonquin Boulevard road closure moves west from Pine Street, where it's currently closed, to Balsam. It means that the main road through town will be completely closed from Balsam to Brunette Road.
“City contractors are expediting site preparation, including removal of the existing asphalt,” said Scott Tam, director of growth and infrastructure, in a news release. “Once the overpass is removed, they will be ready to start work on excavation. We are closing the full construction zone to provide space for staging of materials and equipment, instead of using valuable municipal parking space in the downtown core.”
The demolition of the concrete overpass on Algonquin started last week. Contractors are removing ballast rock, saw-cutting the concrete and drilling to remove the concrete from the embedded steel, said the City of Timmins in an update on April 10. The steel removed will be recycled.
For the expanded road closure next week, the first step is three to five days of grinding operations to remove asphalt.
While this work is down, the city says that pedestrians can cross Algonquin Boulevard at the Balsam and Brunette intersections. When the grinding work is finished, there will be a pedestrian crossing at Pine Street.
The sidewalks on Algonquin will be open and safely blocked from the active construction area.
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 at Second and Brunette that are flashing, 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.
