Court Street drivers will face another delay this week as city crews begin building a traffic island in front of Auburn Middle School.

City crews put cones in the middle of Court Street earlier this summer to help drivers get used to the new island, said City Engineer Steve Ranney. They’ll begin building the asphalt island Wednesday and Thursday.

“They were experimenting with where to place it,” Ranney said. “It will be a raised island to just better define the traffic pattern and slow things down.”

The island will begin flush with the surrounding pavement by the school’s west entrance and increase in height as it moves east.

It is designed to protect the crosswalk leading into the school and to force traffic in the left lane to turn into the school.

The work “won’t completely close the road, but there will some amount of disruption there,” Ranney said.

Auburn crews will also be finishing a storm sewer separation project along Western Avenue, Ranney said.

Main Street work

In Lewiston, contractors from Blue Rock Industries will begin repaving Main Street between Montello Street and Stetson Road this week.

Those crews wrapped up most of the paving work between Stetson Road and the Greene town line last week, said city Public Works Director David Jones.

Water and sewer crews began digging holes along Main Street between Canal and Sabattus streets Saturday as part of a project to clean and line water pipes. That work is scheduled to continue this week and through Oct. 17, Jones said.

“They don’t dig up the whole line,” Jones said. “They can just dig a hole every few feet to open up the pipe and do what they need to.”

Jones said city crews would be busy paving roads for the next month as well. Eight roads are scheduled to receive coats of asphalt over the next few weeks, and 11 more are ready to be paved but have not been scheduled. Four more roads are still waiting for pavement preparations.

“We have a few more that haven’t even made that list,” Jones said. “Right now, we know we’re going to get pushed right up until the first week of November.”

Paving this week is scheduled for Pearl Street between Malo Street and Boston Avenue, Charles Street from Farwell Street to the dead end, Shawmut Street between Pine and Ash streets, Howard Street from Walnut to Pine streets and Walnut Street between Jefferson and Howard streets.

Bates Street between Spruce and Ash streets and Canal Street between Cedar and Maple streets are both scheduled to get new layers of asphalt next week.

staylor@sunjournal.com

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