It’s been called the southern gateway to the downtown: A stretch of George Street, running from Perry Street to Sherbrooke Street.
Peterborough is giving it a makeover. Road improvements are set to begin August 14.
But three weeks before crews get the shovels out, city staff want to double the workload and the bottom line.
Peterborough’s director of utility services is asking city council to increase the project’s budget from about $1 million to just over $2 million.
But he says that doesn’t mean the project is getting more expensive.
“It’s not a matter of the original amount of work costing double. What we’re doing is double the original amount of work,” Jackson said.
Instead of just adding road improvements, Jackson says crews will replace bus stops with shelters, fix traffic signals, add cross walks and make the stretch a more pedestrian-friendly zone to take walkers from the city’s south end to the downtown core.
Jackson says all of the work was already budgeted for but the plan was to dole projects out one at a time instead of doing it all at once.
“It’s actually much more efficient, it’s actually much more effective, and we actually get a much better cost if we put all of our work altogether.”