WESTLOCK – After several decades, a portion of the Town of Westlock’s Main Street sidewalks are getting much-needed upgrades at an estimated cost of $140,000.
“There’s probably been some work done over the years, but the original installation was about 70-plus years ago,” said town director of operations Robin Benoit.
Both the east and west side sections of sidewalk along 100th Street between Highway 18 and 104th Avenue in front of the Heritage Building and St. Mary of the Assumption Church has ongoing curb, gutter and sidewalk repair work.
“It’s from Highway 18 to 104th Ave. this year and next year we’ll be doing the following block,” said Benoit. “On the east side of the street, we’re replacing curb, gutter and sidewalk. On the west side of the street we are replacing just curb, gutter, the driveway crossings and we’re introducing some accessibility ramps in front of the church — the church has an accessible unloading zone there but they didn’t have any ramps so we’ll be installing two ramps at that location.”
Benoit said the curb and gutter was “crumbling on both sides of the street” and there were “some settlement issues that we were dealing with and some drainage issues that we’re making improvements on as well.”
Costs for the sidewalk upgrades are estimated at about $140,000 but may come a bit less noted Benoit, adding that amount is covered via the town’s operating budget with money set aside for sidewalk repairs.
“For this year, we decided to focus on getting this block cleaned up. We do carry money in the annual operating budget each year for sidewalk rehab,” he said, noting over two years the focus will be this block and the next one down between 104 and 105th Avenue, the target for 2024.
Workers began preparing the area Aug. 18 with removal work starting Aug.19 and continued last week, with a target finish date of Aug. 25.
“The reason we chose (to start) over the (Aug. 18-20) weekend is it had the least amount of impact on the library,” said Benoit. “They’ll probably be wrapped up pretty much by the end of the week with the concrete curb. The road portion of it will be repaired hopefully by the weekend (Aug. 26) as well.”
