With the intersection of First Avenue and 16th Street northeast being closed due to infrastructure improvements, the end is in sight. Work will resume this Friday.

"They have completed rebuilding the actual intersection, as well as adding the additional lanes, so those have been brought up and built now. We're just in the transition between operations and so we are moving on to the milling and paving part of the operation now," explained Jennifer Wilkinson, Director of Engineering for the City of Weyburn. "So there has been a slight delay in the crew on that, and with that, we are expecting them to actually start milling tomorrow, Friday."

She said they'll be moving into the paving work next week. 

"That happens a lot with construction projects. When you have different pieces of equipment that need to be utilized and as well as these contractors are always doing multiple jobs, it kind of depends on how the schedule flows, of what the timing can be to get them there."

While the milling will take a few days, and they're bringing in some extra equipment to try and get that and the paving work done as efficiently as possible, as with any construction project, it is subject to weather and any other conditions that come along.

"They are trying to move as efficiently as possible to ensure they are getting it done within the next couple of weeks," Wilkinson noted. 

Traffic will soon be flowing much better at the intersection, thanks to a traffic study that pointed out some of the ways to improve infrastructure for this purpose.

"There will be an additional turning lane there, as well as if people are turning left onto that service road, you will be able to go around that traffic so there's a little bit of an additional lane there to get around that," she said. "So we're really excited to hopefully have traffic move a little more efficiently in that area."

"We understand that this has caused traffic on other streets, and the detour in place has definitely affected people's day-to-day lives, but we really appreciate the patience with this project and hope that this short-term pain will be a much long-term gain for the city and the residents." 

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