Regina road work update: what’s on track and delayed?

Regina drivers can always expect two seasons every year, road construction season and winter, but the first of those is far from over.

Norm Kyle, manager of transportation and traffic services for the City of Regina, says 168 road projects have wrapped up this summer and 155 are ongoing.

“Some of the projects can carry on late into the fall and winter like some of the water realigning underground projects are not affected as much by the weather and can still continue, but most of the roadway projects will typically need to be wrapped up by mid-October,” Kyle explained.

Replacement of the on and off ramps at Ring Road and Victoria Avenue is on schedule to be completed by the end of October.
He said the weather has been good throughout this construction season with very few days off due to rain. Kyle said there were a few days they had to cancel work due to extreme heat.

“Victoria Avenue from Park to Arcola is kind of on the bubble right now as it gets a little later and McCarthy – we’re still working to get that paved this year. At the minimum we would get from Rochdale to Dagliesh done,” Kyle said.

The rehabilitation work on McCarthy Boulevard in the north end has been delayed due to design changes and issues with supply of materials.

Work on Elphinstone Street south of the railroad tracks to Fourth Avenue will actually be put off until next year because there was an issue with work on the water mains.

“All the pits filled up with water so it saturated the road’s sub-base so we decided to defer that – we didn’t want to go in and rip the asphalt off and find out that everything was saturated and soft so we’ve decided to let that sit to dry out,” Kyle explained.

Heading into the end of September with the weather turning cool, Kyle said the city will be evaluating the remaining projects on a weekly basis to determine where to focus resources to finish before the cold weather sets in and the snow flies.

After an extremely high number of water main breaks throughout the city last fall, through the winter and over this summer due to dry conditions, Kyle admits the city is a bit behind on cleaning up after the repairs. He said the city has added more resources to focus on the ongoing issue of water main breaks.