Highland Ave., Airport Rd., and 50-plus more blocks of city street work – The Capital Journal

When were in the midst of a February deep freeze, summer projects arent necessarily top of mind. But at the City were busy getting our 2021 construction season mapped out.

Just this week, the Commission got a look at the street paving and curb and gutter projects planned for this summer. Aside from rebuilding both Highland Avenue and Airport Road, well make improvements to more than 50 blocks of city street.

Those improvements will come in a variety of forms. Some will be completely rebuilt, some will be completely rebuilt and get new underground utilities, some will get a new surface, and others will get new curb and gutter.

The Commission receives more contacts about street conditions than any other issue in the community. We absolutely consider those citizen concerns when were making decisions. Thats why, this year we added an extra million dollars to the budget for street repairs. Were committed to infrastructure improvements.

Were also committed to making the construction piece of those improvements as painless as possible. Thats why we have been taking a different approach with our curb and gutter work. You see, curb and gutter work almost always accompanies street surface work. But coordinating schedules between contractors, weather, and the order in which all the improvements need to be made can be challenging and even lead to construction delays.

So, the team has worked extra hard for the last two years to get ahead in the curb and gutter work. Essentially, this year and last, the curb and gutter team does a year and half of work in one year. By the end of this construction season, our curb and gutter work should be a year ahead of our street work.

Heres why you care. It will make traffic disruptions shorter and streamline construction projects to the benefit of those living in the construction zone and those who travel through it. It may seem like a small operational change, but its one our team has invested a great deal of time and energy in to make work.

While our budget allowed us to invest more in streets improvements, we dont control what the contractor bids will look like or how the weather will look. If bids come in favorably and the weather is cooperative, we will enjoy lots of new street improvements in 2021.

You can find a map of all of our preliminary street improvement projects at cityofpierre.org on our streets page.

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Highland Ave., Airport Rd., and 50-plus more blocks of city street work - The Capital Journal