Editor:
After months of major inconvenience and millions of our tax dollars spent on the widening of 160 Street between 26 and 28 Avenues, what do we have? A two-lane street still with the inside lanes closed off.
Surely after several years of pre-planning before construction began, the City of Surrey engineering department had lots of time to co-ordinate the construction schedule with BC Hydro to get the poles relocated whilst the road closure was in place. I see this often in similar situations; the road remains two lanes for months after the road widening is finished, waiting for Hydro to do their work.
I’m a retired construction project manager and would gladly offer my advice and expertise to instruct the city engineering staff – BC Hydro’s also – in the use of construction scheduling computer software, in particular, critical path scheduling.
It ain’t rocket science, and it’s shameful to see our tax dollars and time wasted in this manner.
I can also predict that the same situation will apply with the current Phase 2 closure of 160 Street between 28 and 32 Avenues. i.e. months of major inconvenience and more millions of tax dollars spent and we’ll still end up with two lanes only for many more months.
This portion of the project was supposed to be complete by Aug. 31st. but on inspection is predictably still many weeks to completion. Totally asinine and unnecessary.
After writing the foregoing I inspected the site again today and was astonished to see that 160 between 27 Avenue and 28 Avenue has been dug up yet again for a large trench to house concrete pipes. This area was part of Phase 1, and again I am amazed at the sheer incompetence of Surrey engineering, who should have scheduled this work whilst the road was closed for months during Phase 1. Beyond belief.
Chris Mansfield, Morgan Creek
