Digging Deep on First Avenue as water line work moves towards fourth month

The work site appears to be expanding on the First Avenue Waterline project
contractors began work on the waterline issues in December as 
part of the City's Local State of Emergency

The path of progress for work on the First Avenue East waterlines appears to be down, down, down with a large collection of heavy equipment on the site of one of two items of work from the Local State of Emergency of December.

Contractors are approaching their work from atop the bluffs on First Avenue East and below from the Cow Bay Parking lot, the job one that seems to be more extensive now than just a repair to a waterline.

The First Avenue East site and another area of extensive work on Crestview Drive continue to be closed to through traffic as the work continues, the once daily updates of December now delivered on a more relaxed timeline, if they come at all. 

When it comes to these two projects of the longest duration,  there hasn't been any information since the December Emergency came to an end for Council from Operations, nor have the City Council member asked any questions of their own.

The current state of First and Crestview is just a preview of what the next few years are going to look like for many of the city's streets. 

As we outlined on St. Patrick's Day, Premier David Eby came to town with his own personal Pot of Gold for the community, that by way of a 65 million dollar announcement of funding for the city's waterline woes.

Much needed, but yet not surprisingly, that amount is nowhere near enough to address decades of kicking the infrastructure can down the road amidst some financial challenges for the City and a direction of funding that was in hand, that went towards towards other priorities for Council.

At the end of the March 20th Council Session, Mayor Herb Pond paid thanks to the province for the funding, observing for residents that the next few years will be those of  work to "Renovate Rupert".

To this point however, the city hasn't identified any of their priority list of 26 kilometres high risk areas of concern for the public that they plan to address first.

More notes on Major Projects can be reviewed here, items of interest from the Operations Department can be explored here.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review.