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Daily Sun photo/Janet Jacobs Richard Sneed with Bethel Seventh-Day Aventist Church praised the reconstruction work on Thirteenth Avenue Wednesday following the opening of the first phase.

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February 24, 2010

Phase 1 of 13th Ave. reopens to traffic

By Janet Jacobs Corsicana Daily Sun The Corsicana Daily Sun Wed Feb 24, 2010, 09:58 PM CST

Corsicana —

The first phase of reconstruction of East 13th Avenue opened to traffic Wednesday.

For Richard Sneed of Bethel Seventh-Day Adventist Church, it’s a blessing to have the new street — and the driveway the construction crews left in their wake.

“We’re really thankful for that, and the driveway,” he said. “They worked with us real well.”

The next section to go under the bulldozers will be from Third Street to Benton, at Carroll Elementary, explained Elizabeth Borstad, city engineer.

“We actually broke the school frontage in half so we could still provide bus access throughout the (school) year,” she said. “What we’re probably going to do is the next section, we’ll skip to the end near the apartments and leave the section in front of the school for this summer. That way, we’ll just have the summer school traffic to deal with.”

Phase three of the reconstruction project is the section of the road from the middle of the school to the apartments.

Bad weather in the last several weeks has slowed progress on the project, but it could be made up during the dry season, Borstad predicted.

“It’s actually been moving along really well, considering the weather we’ve had,” Borstad said. “We may be a month behind, if that. But that’s not unusual for a construction project.”

The project to rebuild the street was approved by voters in 2006 as one of a dozen major streets in the city that needed to be reconstructed for long-term heavy traffic. Instead of using asphalt, the streets are being rebuilt with concrete for a longer life. When completed, 13th Avenue will look similar to 12th Avenue, across Business 45.

“It’s going to be a huge improvement of that road,” said Doug Spradley, estimator for XIT Pavement, the company doing the work.

The second phase will begin Thursday when crews start removing the curb and gutters up to Benton Drive. On Monday, crews will start milling out the old asphalt. The southern half of the road will be done first. Only when it’s completed will they start the north half, Spradley said.

Working with the residents along the street is just part of the process, Spradley said.

“There’s always an inconvenience when you’ve got a project like this,” he said. “But we don’t want to dismiss their concerns. We always want to work with the property owners because it m makes a better project.

In addition to leaving access for each home or church during construction, the project also calls for creating new curbs and driveway entrances to each lot.

“Typically, we stop at the property line because that’s all the city owns, unless there’s some type of agreement the owner has with the city,” Spradley said.

The entire street should be finished by the end of summer, just in time for the start of the 2010-2011 school year. The school year could also see the new sidewalks alongside Thirteenth, as well, if the crews are able to make the progress anticipated.

The city received a grant to build sidewalks near schools, and the route along 13th Avenue to Carroll Elementary is going to get new sidewalks as well, but not while the road crews are busy there, Borstad said.

“You don’t want to bring in two separate contractors at once,” she pointed out.

Meanwhile, the sidewalk project is making headway in other parts of the city.

“We’re doing those right now on North Beaton, and they’ll be done in a few weeks,” she said. “Then there’s a sidewalk to put in on Bowie and then 13th. We’ve already done some by Drane and by Navarro Elementary, so they’re moving along.”

—————

Janet Jacobs may be reached via e-mail at jacobs@corsicanadailysun.com. Want to “Soundoff” on this story? E-mail: soundoff@corsicanadailysun.com

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