DIXFIELD — Drivers hitting the roads in the tri-county area will be hard pressed not to find traffic delays this summer from numerous state paving projects.

The good news is the work is mostly one- or two-day projects that will be done by Sept. 16, Doug Coombs, engineer and senior project manager for the Maine Department of Transportation in Dixfield, said Wednesday morning.

The paving work, as it is called, tentatively starts Monday, June 1, in the Rumford to West Paris area, possibly on Greenwood Street.

Pike Industries of Fairfield won the contract. So it’s up to them when and where they start what’s called the Rumford, Livermore and Weld contracts, which involve covering roads in several Western Maine towns in Oxford, Franklin and Androscoggin counties, Coombs said.

Roads will be topped with five-eighths of an inch of pavement. The MDOT does this type of work every seven years, he said.

The Rumford contract is anticipated to be finished on June 19. Coombs said tentatively-scheduled starts are July 6 for the Livermore contract and Aug. 3 for the Weld contract. The last road to be completed in the Weld contract is the Canton Point Road in Dixfield and Canton.

Among the light paving projects in 2016 are Route 19 from West Paris to Route 4. But this summer, a state-aid crew will be reconstructing road shoulders at the Sumner Fire Station and Town Office.

The long-awaited Route 2 reconstruction project in Dixfield is also tentatively scheduled to start in 2016, he said. Also scheduled for 2016 is milling down and paving a road in Mexico from the Red Bridge that spans the Swift River connecting Mexico to Rumford.

Work started in 2013 to replace the Martin Memorial Bridge over the Androscoggin River in Rumford Point with a new bridge a few hundred feet upriver. It will carry Route 232 traffic over the river to Route 2. The work is expected to be completed by Dec. 15.

tkarkos@sunmediagroup.net

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