Increased traffic along London Road in Sarnia, caused by the closure on Exmouth Street, may only need to be endured for a few more weeks.
City of Sarnia Construction Manager Robert Williams said they're expecting to reopen Exmouth Street between Lambton Mall Road and Pontiac Drive around the second week of November.
Williams said generally, the project has gone well so far.
"Our work on Exmouth Street was a little bit delayed, we had some delays getting the pipe that we used and some delays with scheduling contractors but all of the underground work is now done," he said.
Williams said traffic lights will be installed in the area this week, with paving scheduled to begin on Friday. The finishing touches of the project will include landscaping.
During the work on Exmouth Street, access from the Howard Watson Nature Trail was closed off. However, there was still pedestrian traffic in the area, which Williams said posed a challenge.
"We try to accommodate as many pedestrians as we could by doing half of the road at a time and that's working generally well, but the pedestrians certainly [pose] an issue," he said. "We understand it's very hard to detour in such a significant direction, and closing the trail was not something we really wanted to do but there wasn't a natural detour."
Another aspect of this year's phase of the Rapids Parkway extension project involves the installation of a roundabout at Quinn Drive, near Home Depot. Williams said this project might not be completed until mid to late November.
"We've got some fencing to do there and some additional landscaping," he said. "Then there'll be some extra time for signs and line painting so that might run a little longer."
This latest phase of the parkway extension was expected to cost $3.2 million. Williams said so far, the process is operating according to budget.