By Jennifer Stultz

Tri-County Tribune Editor

jstultz@cherryroad.com

The long-armed temporary traffic lights that have been part of the S. Main Street landscape for the past several months as a contracted street crew removed bricks from the center of the road may disappear as early as sometime this week. Great Bend EBH Inspector for the project Lane Milholland said everything has gone according to schedule and the job has passed inspection, in spite of adverse weather conditions that crews had to contend with throughout the duration of the project.

Milholland, who was measuring concrete density last week as a final evaluation of the street work, said that the project had been planning, timed and bid with weather complications in mind.

“It wasn’t ideal conditions when it was zero degrees out here and the crew was laying in the bricks,” Milholland said. “But they did an excellent job of getting it done right and on time.”

Vehicles have been driving on the edges of the newly laid concrete and re-laid adjoining bricks that match up with those on the sides of the Main street since the beginning of the project. Milholland said that was perfectly okay and would not harm the new construction.

“The concrete is actually thicker along the edges of the new street,” he said. “Where the bricks are laid in and attached, there is an extra layer underneath to support the project. It was all planned out very good by the contractors.”

The City of Pratt is still pursing grants and funding options to complete the smooth addition of concrete up the entire center of South Main, but two blocks remain undone. For now, drivers are reminded to hold their coffee cups carefully as they traverse from smooth to smooth and remember the past fondly on the final stretch of red brick roads in Pratt.