REGINA – Peter Fike has lived in his 4th Avenue North home for over 17 years. His lawn has since turned into a peninsula of sorts after the city excavated the surrounding sidewalk and part of the street on Friday.
“No notice, no nothing. Then just one day they showed up,” he said of the city workers that excavated the area.
A section of the street beside his home, beside a bus stop, was excavated two months prior but not yet fixed.
“I’m not very happy about it. I mean, I’m paying my taxes and they’re not cheap, and I’m not getting the services,” said Fike.
Several similar construction sights can be seen throughout North Regina.
According to the city, a higher number of water main breaks caused by a colder and longer than usual winter, and subsequently, a later than normal start to construction season has delayed road work.
George Galloway, manager of Concrete Services for Roadway Operations for the city, estimates that there were already 580 trouble spots waiting at the start.
“Our crews could repair, say, 60-80 water main breaks in a week. We may experience another 40 that same month, so it’s kind of a revolving inventory,” he said.
City construction is being focused area by area to save on driving time.
“It’s proved to be really beneficial. In the last couple of years we’ve increased the amount of concrete that we’ve poured and the number of locations we’ve done by about 20 per cent,” said Galloway.
Construction, he added, is also prioritized based on things including wheelchair accessibility, proximity to senior homes, and pedestrian volume. Construction at the Fike’s corner should start and finish here within two weeks.
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