After all of the delays getting started, progress on the reconstruction Main Street South has been substantial.

The mild weather the area experienced up to last week allowed for excellent conditions for the contractor to construct several segments of the service road alignments along the eastern and western sides of the highway.

“Progress has been great thus far,” director of Public Works and Operations Mike VanAlstyne said. “We’re probably right on schedule. It was always intended that they would work on that, but the efficiency of the weather helped greatly with getting that in as quick as they did.”

As well as part of the drainage plan for the area, the majority of the western retention pond has been dug and the access to the eastern retention pond has been constructed off of Whitmore Avenue.

VanAlstyne expects work on the eastern pond itself to begin this week, leading to progress on another exciting project.

“The contractor will be hauling material from the east pond to Maamawi Park to begin the construction of the toboggan hill,” he said. “The plan is to start hauling material there Tuesday.”

Looking back to the drainage system, VanAlstyne expects work to begin on the construction of some of the storm sewer piping required over the next few weeks.

But, he added, things will be slowing down a bit when it comes to the highway work itself.

“Work along the highway corridor is temporarily on hold until the gas main relocation work takes place, which is expected to begin near the end of January,” VanAlstyne said, adding the gas main currently runs along the west side of the highway. “Until then there can’t be a lot of work done on the road alignments. It’s going to be slow for a couple weeks, from what we can see, but there’s lots of excavation work happening on the east pond.”