Work On University Road Nearing Completion

The only thing missing from University Road are the white and orange lane stripes.

The cars are already there, whizzing past the barriers and down the smooth asphalt.

“People are just zooming by,” remarked Melody Haynes, who lives in the North 1300 block of University Road.

University has been closed to traffic between Mission and Main avenues since work begain in July on a $2.89 million road improvement job. The project added a center turn lane, bike lanes and sidewalks. The area was also sewered.

The road could officially reopen as soon as Friday, said county construction engineer Chad Coles.

“That is of course weather dependent,” he said. The contractor needs two dry days to stripe the road.

“It’s kind of iffy this time of year,” he said.

As soon as the paint dries, the barriers will come down. There will be no ribbon-cutting ceremony.

After the road opens, construction crews will still have to dig drainage areas and build some short retaining walls between the sidewalk and front yards, but otherwise the road is ready.

“It looks real nice now that it’s done,” said Wilfred Moss, who lives at the corner of University and Mission.

The worst part of the road widening for some neighbors was losing 100 trees along the one-mile stretch of roadway.

Moss lost a blue spruce and white ash to the construction project.

“They paid me for the trees, but I’d rather have the trees than the money,” he said.

Moss and other neighbors said they won’t miss the dust and noise that went along with construction but don’t look forward to the traffic.

Having the new Valley couplet end at University will only make their road busier, said Haynes.

“This is almost a main street like Sprague,” she said.