Cheney road construction could change your route
CHENEY – Drivers might soon have to switch routes about town when road construction projects get under way.
City Administrator Arlene Fisher said that the City Council has approved several contracts and work will begin as soon as Inland Asphalt is ready to go.
The 2008 Road and Water Project will replace water main segments on north Sixth Street from Oak to Elm streets and on Mary Street from Second to Fifth streets.
The city will also resurface some streets. Presley Drive will have construction from Salnave to First Street; Mary will be resurfaced from First to Seventh streets; Third will be worked on from Pine to Mary streets; North Third Street from Elm to Nolan Brown; and Fourth Street will get repaved from Fern to Mary.
“Hopefully this won’t be too much of an inconvenience for residents,” Fisher said.
Fisher said there were three projects planned that will not be completed this summer.
“We’re facing increased costs of oil-related projects,” she said.
Some of the work planned that will not be completed because of oil prices, include the resurfacing project of North Sixth Street from Oak to Elm, and G Street from First to Second streets.
“In our opinion, there is little question that the high oil costs affected this project with respect to what we estimated for the resurfacing on north Sixth and G, as well as for the water main costs,” said Don MacDonald, director of public works in an e-mail.
“In addition to being a key component in asphalt, oil is also an important constituent in polyvinyl chloride pipe material”
Fisher said the city will take a look at those projects sometime this fall to see if completing them would be feasible if oil prices are lowered.
The projects should cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $712,170 – much less than the $803,688 the city would have paid if the two projects hadn’t been postponed.
Of that amount, the city will pay $460,101, a Community Development Block Grant (will help to pay $129,400 for the water main projects, and the Spokane Transit Authority will pay $122,669.78 to help defray the costs of the resurfacing on Presley Drive.