By Michael Gorman
THE VANGUARD
NovaNewsNow.com
Major capital work on Pleasant Street, a projected tapped to come in at $4 million, is expected to begin before summer’s end.
Mayor Phil Mooney said recently that tenders for the work, which spans from Starrs Road to Prospect Street, would close July 6.
The work is part of the federal stimulus program. Yarmouth town council submitted a list of four projects with the Pleasant Street work as the top priority. It was the only project approved for funding.
The work will include a total rebuild of the street including curbing, new walking paths, realigning of the street, foliage and plumbing upgrades.
Mooney said the project addresses many of the demands placed on what has become an increasingly busy section of road given expanding subdivisions, the community college and the new Tidal View.
The project has not been without its problems. With a completion deadline of March 31, 2011 in order to qualify for the federal money, the town is cutting things close.
But Mooney said that could not be helped. With the number of municipalities submitting projects for the federal program, they had to wait until engineering companies were available to prepare the project.
“All the engineering companies and the design companies are so full of work these days that it’s hard to get something done,” he said. “When you’re talking the City of Toronto (with) a $100 million sewage treatment plant at one end of the city and you’re talking about the Town of Yarmouth with a $4 million road reconstruction (project), what’s an engineering firm going to look at (first)?”
It’s a challenge municipalities around the province and region are facing, said Mooney.
The mayor said that although he’s concerned about the town’s ability to meet that deadline, a number of municipal organizations are lobbying the federal government to extend the completion deadline by six to eight months in order to allow everyone to complete their projects.
“All the major cities and almost every regional municipality across Canada has problems with the timeline now,” he said.
Failing an extension on the timeline, Mooney said the town would be able to find any necessary funds to cover the remainder of the project in various departmental budgets.
“We have other resources to draw from.”
