On Oct. 12, Mayor Ross Forrest announced that the awaited paving of South Shore Road has had to be postponed until sometime in early 2013.
He says that the tender for the project was put out late by the ministry, “and now it’s getting kind of late because now the weather is changing of course.”
The town has been working closely with the ministry to decide the next best plan of action.
“The plan now is we’re going to begin early in the new year. There will be a roundabout built, and then [the road will be] paved,” said Forrest.
The paving is to be completed as soon as the paving season starts, meaning once the weather turns dry again.
“Whenever the weather gets decent, they can start paving,” said Forrest. This could mean around May, but hopefully sooner.
“We have to do some winterizing and some changing of a few things because the intent all along was for it to be paved before the end of this year but now we have to sort of winterize what we have there, like probably finish the medians off and do some work on the storm drains and stuff.”
Forrest says that this change in plans is not all bad news.
“In a way, I’m actually happier about it because we never, ever felt comfortable about them paving the road and then putting the roundabout in. It seemed backwards to do that because you’d be tearing up some of the new pavement. Right from the very beginning we were a little more comfortable with [the roundabout being] included; where it was done first.”
Forrest explained that the town completed the work it was responsible for, in preparation for the project, on time.
“It got kind of late in the year with the tender process. We could have taken the chance and paved now, but change of weather . . . it would have been risky.”
