Chancery Street reopens to downtown traffic
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Vehicles can once again travel north and south on Chancery Street, which alleviates the need for a major detour on High Street and also relieves other detour pressures around the downtown business district. West Main Street between High and Chancery streets is also open, but West Main Street between Chancery Street and Court Square will not re-open at this time.
“We’re putting a lot of traffic on residential streets that are not designed to handle it,” Public Works director Bill Brock said of side street congestion after construction began on Main Street in mid-August. “This will put everybody back on a wide enough road.”
When traffic flows through the newly revamped area, travelers will see new overhead traffic and street lighting, imprinted concrete crosswalks, new sidewalks and a concrete intersection at Chancery and West Main. They won’t see 12 overhead utility lines, which were removed and placed underground.
While some have complained about reduced traffic affecting business, Dr. Badshah Maitra of Cumberland Psychiatric Services on West Main Street has had a bird’s eye view of the project since construction began. He said yesterday after coming outside while a street sweeper tidied up he is proud to see the improvements.
“They’ve been very good workers,” Maitra said. “I’ve had no complaints whatsoever.”
Construction crews have made a concerted effort to reopen the street and officials were celebrating the reopening, but they were also cautioning the entrance to that intersection will be imperfect.
“They’re probably going to realize it’s bumpy, it’s rough and it dips,” Brock said. “This is not the finished coat. There will be a top coat to go on this and our crosswalk lights are not going right now. But we still feel like even with the crosswalks and the rough pavement and some minor brick work to do, it’s worth opening up to get the traffic flowing.”
Mayor Royce Davenport and other city officials on hand for the intended reopening were pleased with progress.
“It’s just like a great day for me,” Davenport said. “Traffic flows so heavily on Chancery Street that it was a major inconvenience to many people for a two-block detour.
“This will eliminate that and we’ll go ahead and continue with the work on Main Street and finish up this area. There’s still some bricks to be put in placed and sidewalks to be poured right here in this area and that will hopefully be finished this month.”
Vice Mayor Patti Nunley said she hopes the public will begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
“I know people have been saying to me and to everyone else, ‘You’re never going to get it done,'” she said. “And we’re a long way from getting it all done, but at least we have gotten one step done and I think this re-opens the hope that before too long, it will all be done. And won’t it be a great thing?”
Brock cautioned that as it was when the detours first began in mid-August, travelers will have to readjust to changes in timing at related stoplights on side streets.
“We will have to redo our traffic signals at a couple of intersections to get those timed right, so we just ask people to be patient with us,” he said. “We will also have to put our stop sign back up at High and Morford streets. Right now it’s a yield, so people will have to start stopping there again. Going north on high, it will return to a stop sign.”
While there have been several delays, workers have progressed into other sections of the project, so in some cases, work is actually ahead of schedule. Davenport said he has been told the 14-month completion date originally planned is still intact.
“The contractor believes so, and we all hope it’s so that they can make it up. They had some extra time figured in and this is the first section. They are thinking they are going to gain some productivity repeating the same process all the way down Main Street. They learned here, so each section should be a little faster,” he added.