BANGOR, Maine — There’s a good chance that Abraham Lincoln was still in office during the installation of a sewer main that city officials will begin replacing next week, City Engineer John Theriault said Tuesday.
Besides the more than 150-year-old sewer main, work crews also will install storm drains, catch basins, sewer manholes, a water main, hydrants, water services and new electrical and communication infrastructure at Hammond, Central and Main streets — one of the city’s busiest intersections.
The $1.6 million project will start Sunday night, weather permitting. The start will be delayed a week if the weather isn’t warm enough, Theriault said. Work will be done from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. to limit traffic snags. Traffic will be rerouted over side streets or limited to one lane of Hammond Street, though the one-lane phase of the project is not set to begin for several weeks. Motorists should plan on commutes over those streets to take several minutes longer than usual, Theriault said.
The $1.6 million job is due to last until early September, but city officials hope it will take less time.
“It is going to inconvenience people downtown. It will certainly be noticeable,” Theriault said Tuesday. “All I really ask is that motorists be patient. They should prepare their schedules to be aware that it will take longer [to get through downtown] once the work starts.”
The work is the latest job to get underway as city officials slowly replace centuries old infrastructure that frequently causes sinkholes when it collapses. One of the most recent sinkholes, caused by the collapse of an ancient wooden culvert that swallowed a light pole and some paved walkway near Bangor Waterfront in November, cost about $205,000 to fix. Another sinkhole closed a restaurant at the intersection of Main and Hammond streets for a week in 2016.
Hammond, Harlow and Lincoln streets and Davis Court have been among the sinkhole sites in the last few years. The Bangor Water District replaced water mains on Broadway near Center Street and on Hammond and Union streets last year, causing significant traffic snags.