Road closures for Cathedral Square roadworks

29 April 2004

The final piece of work to replace Cathedral Square roadway pavers will begin next week and will involve closure of roads in the east of the Square from Monday, 3 May until Tuesday 11 May.

The granite pavers in the road are being replaced with asphalt to improve safety. The work about to start is on the stretch north of the Cathedral, from the intersection between The Press and the Heritage to the Colombo-Gloucester intersection.

From Monday to Friday next week, vehicles on Worcester Street entering the Square from the east will only be able to go south of the Cathedral. Over the weekend of 8-9 May the Press-Heritage intersection will be closed, meaning closure of all traffic through the east side of the Square.

Vehicles coming in from the west, on Worcester Street, will have to go back out the way they arrived because that road will temporarily dead-end opposite the Police Kiosk.

The contractor is City Care.

Background

At its December 2002 meeting the City Council considered a report on the Square which said work was needed on the road surface. It said there were two issues with the road’s existing granite surfacing -- the pavers’ slipperiness when wet and the ongoing maintenance costs and the structural failure of the road surface.

The Council voted to replace the granite pavers on all carriageways with asphalt and to have the work done progressively to match repair needs and the pavement-renewal budget. The first part of this work was carried out in May, 2003. Concrete pavers would be considered on those parts of the carriageways “where indicated for aesthetic design purposes and where traffic conditions permit”. The Council also instructed staff to recycle any undamaged pavers to be used when work is done on the Square’s north-west quadrant.

The full report from that December 2002 meeting and the decisions can be found on the web, clicking here.

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