Most everyone in Park City was likely thrilled when they woke up to snow on the ground on Monday morning, the first snowfall of the season at the lower elevations of the city.
The crews continuing to rebuild Bonanza Drive might not have been jumping for joy with the rest of Park City, though.
The roadwork has entered its final weeks, but the snowfall that arrived Sunday night and early Monday came as the crews are trying finish the work before the bad weather becomes commonplace.
Matt Cassel, the Park City engineer and the City Hall staffer who is monitoring the Bonanza Drive work, said it is unlikely the snow will cause significant delays. He said most of the work that could not take place if the weather is cold has already been completed.
Cassel, for instance, said the workers have already put in up to 99 percent of the asphalt required in the Bonanza Drive redo, an important figure since asphalt cannot be put down if the outside temperature dips below 50 degrees. The remaining asphalt work could be delayed until 2011 if the temperatures do not rise above 50 degrees, he said. The last section of asphalt work is a 200-foot stretch of Iron Horse Drive, which will be topped with a one-inch-thick layer.
The paving that remains to be completed mostly involves concrete, he said, explaining that concrete can be poured at colder temperatures than asphalt because it is made of different ingredients.
“We’ll probably lose a day or two” based on the weather, Cassel said, adding that the crews on Monday were set to put in concrete curbs and gutters.
The city engineer said he hopes the project is substantially complete by the middle of November, long the target for City Hall and the work crews. Other work that remains include building a final stretch of sidewalk and constructing retaining walls that are part of a pedestrian-bicyclist tunnel underneath Bonanza Drive.
The weather, he said, is a “bump in the road.” Had the snow and cold weather started a few weeks earlier, Cassel said he would be more concerned.
“We don’t need great weather to get work done,” he said.
The mix of sleet and snow that came down early in the week, though, created messy conditions along Bonanza Drive, which reopened recently. There was standing water seen on Bonanza Drive on Monday morning in locations that are not finished. Wet weather is forecast through the middle of the week.
The Bonanza Drive redo is in its second year, with the workers having started with the stretch of the road closest to Deer Valley Drive last year. In 2010 the crews focused on commercial corridor of Bonanza Drive. Some businesses complained of falling sales this summer and fall as the workers closed down the road and driveways at some points. City Hall scheduled the roadwork at the same time a water line was installed underneath Bonanza Drive.