E.C. King Contracting has been awarded the 2.4 million dollar contract to rebuild the intersection of 10th Street and 9th Avenue East in Owen Sound.
But work on the project will not begin until summer is almost over.
Councillor Bill Twaddle says preliminary site work will happen in mid-August, but the actual construction won’t start until after the Labour Day weekend in September.
The project also involves rebuilding 10th Street between 8th and 10th Avenues — and it’s to be finished by the end of November.
At that time — the new link joining the two sections of 10th Street at 16th Avenue near the hospital and Walmart will also be opened.
The 9th Avenue intersection will be widened and redesigned in such a way that motorists will have to get used to some drastic changes.
The nearby intersection of 15th Street and 9th Avenue will become right-in, right-out — meaning no more left turns from or onto 9th Avenue.
The same thing will happen with the 9th Avenue entrance from Tim Horton’s.
Twaddle says these design elements are requirements of the Ministry of Transportation — which is paying for more than half the cost of the project.
The city wanted to do this work last year and there had been an indication that MTO funding would be made available for it last year – but the ministry ended up deferring that funding until this year.
Twaddle — who is the chair of the operations advisory committee — says the intersection is already the busiest and least safest in the City.
He notes traffic volumes will only increase as the link at 16th Avenue is opened and the nearby Regional Recreation Centre is completed in less than a year.
