It’s been four years, but St. Clair Street business owners and commuters who use the main artery should be getting an early Christmas present this year – smooth pavement.
St. Clair, from McNaughton Avenue to Grand Avenue, has been an angry, uneven stretch of roadway ever since it was torn up in 2009 for waterline and sanitary sewer replacement. The asphalt put down after that project was finished was supposed to be a temporary solution, except this “temporary” lasted more than four years.
Thomas Kelly, Chatham-Kent’s general manager of infrastructure and engineering services, said the municipality held off doing the work as it chased the province for majority funding. He said that stretch of road qualifies for financing under the Ontario government’s Connecting Links program, which helps pay for roadwork on major streets that link provincial highways.
In Chatham, Grand Avenue East and St. Clair Street are listed as part of the Connecting Links, while Dufferin Avenue, McNaughton Avenue and Murray Street in Wallaceburg also qualify.
The news the road will be done is a relief to many. Ivan Katzman, owner of Katzman Real Estate on St. Clair Street, said he’s thrilled.
“We’ve been waiting, waiting, waiting,” he said. “We’ve been asking for this work to be done for quite some time. Finally, the provincial money is supplied.”
Kelly said St. Clair Street is the second-busiest road in Chatham behind Keil Drive, and people want it fixed.
“I’ve been stopped at grocery stores and been asked when we’d get St. Clair fixed,” Kelly said.
The bumpy trip down that busy street has left councilors with an equally uneven ride from constituents.
“I’ve taken more calls on St. Clair than I have on any other issue,” said Chatham Coun. Derek Robertson. “I’ve had people say they buy their coffee at McDonald’s and they don’t open it until they go over the Third Street bridge.”
Kelly said the quest for cash from the province started before he did. But the municipality made inroads this year.
“I started a year ago in June. We presented at AMO (Association of Municipalities of Ontario) and at (Ontario) Good Roads (Association),” he said. “We did meet with the right folks on two different occasions and followed up to make sure they were well aware of our issue. And we finally did get the funding.”
As a result, the province will pay $2 million towards the project, which Kelly thinks will be done before the snow flies. He had hoped for an earlier completion date, but red tape slowed things down.
“I would have liked to have started earlier, but there was a lot of paperwork with the province. The official announcement didn’t come until August. Now we are scrambling,” he said. “We are getting the tenders out now and hope to have the tender process completed at the end of September. And then we can start the work.
Kelly said the construction could run into November.
The work will also be quite detailed, he added, as the plan is to dig down nearly three feet and rip out some old fill that hasn’t helped keep the pavement smooth.
“We are trying to do it right the first time so it can last at least 15 years,” he said. “You can always do a shave-and-pave, where you essentially go down just a few inches and take out the old asphalt and put in new. But we want to get down to the base.”
Kelly said the tender winner will likely pull out old bricks from the substructure, and maybe even and old rail line.
“We’re going to go to the heart of the issue and try to put a very strong structure in place,” he said.
That has Robertson smiling.
“It’s finally going to get done. It’s going to be done right, more importantly.”
