Bri shekels
Student Life Editor
Beginning the day after school gets out and working until school begins again in the fall, construction workers are going to be rebuilding Old Crystal Bay Road and adding a few new conveniences.
Not only is the road going to be repaved, but there are also going to be crosswalks, sidewalks and three roundabouts. These roundabouts will be located at the entrance to the Intermediate school, the first entrance to the senior parking lot and the entrance to the bus parking lots. These are going to “ease up traffic because it is so congested in the mornings,” said principal David Benson.
Students are torn between whether the roundabouts with help with the morning traffic or not. “I don’t think people can handle these. There will be accidents. People drive off fast and just want to zoom off and I think there will be an accident…or 20.” said senior Austin Duffy. Senior Niki Martinson has a different opinion. “It would definitely help because people would get out of here in a more orderly fashion. I have seen so many situations when people don’t know who is supposed to go [at stop signs].” said Martinson.
During last summer, city officials talked with school administrators and district personnel and discovered that both students and parents advised against walking or biking on Old Crystal Bay Road due to safety concerns over the traffic during school hours.
Before the overpass was constructed, Watertown was to be repaved before Old Crystal Bay Road was to be reconstructed. After the overpass was made, the traffic on Watertown was decreased which means it was no longer a priority to repave.
Included with the repaving of Old Crystal Bay Road, three roundabouts, sidewalks, crosswalks, a median, a new sanitary sewer, water main and storm sewer will be added. The roundabouts are going to help with the traffic and attempt to keep traffic from stopping in the middle of the road and the sidewalks and crosswalks will make walking safer for pedestrians to walk. The sanitary sewer, water main and storm sewer were put in when the high school was built so they are in need of an update.
Although the roundabouts will be big enough for the school buses, semis will not be able to drive through them. There will no longer be any left turns.
This reconstruction is estimated to cost around five million dollars with the roundabouts alone costing 2 ½ million. City officials are hoping that State Aid funds will pay for the construction. The majority of the sanitary sewer, water main improvements and a portion of storm sewer improvements that are not covered by the State Aid funds will be paid for by the cities enterprise funds. Although the city is responsible for the road, the school district still has some responsibility.
Whenever construction is done and more land is covered up, a catch basin has to be adjusted and the Orono catch basin is the pond beside the middle school.
Even though the school will be closed because of summer during the construction, cars will still need to get to the schools. Kelley Parkway will be open along with many of the back roads. There will be ways to get into the schools’ parking lots even though the main road is closed.
During the summer construction, the school is also going to be adding an increase in bandwidth. While the road is dug up, workers are going to be putting in Fiberoptic cables. These cables use “light pulses to transmit information down fiber fiber lines instead of using electronic pulses to transmit information down copper lines,” said the Arc Electronics website.The fiber cable can be thought of as a cardboard tube with mirrors lining the inside. If a flashlight is shone through one side, it can be seen at the other, even if there are bends in the tube.
The roundabouts will make Old Crystal Bay Road easier to maneuver through. The sidewalks and crosswalks will make crossing the busy street safer for pedestrians. These new amenities will make Old Crystal Bay Road a safer place.
Photo/ Orono High School