‘Big Dig’ enters home stretch

The project has not been without its challenges. Dionne compared it to renovating a house, with new challenges popping up as you progress.

Those challenges have included large boulders, train tracks, unfavourable base material and the weather.

“I ran on fixing the infrastructure. I knew that when I was going to do the ‘Big Dig’ that I wasn’t going to be popular but at the end of the day just because it’s not popular that isn’t the reason you can’t do the work,” said Dionne.

Dionne added that if the line had collapsed during the winter time, it would have been a $5 million job over the winter, which presents its own challenges.

Looking back Dionne admitted that they did get a late start but it was unavoidable.

“We only had one tendor unfortunately and it was a million dollars over budget so it would have been easy to sign the tax payers’ money away but we wouldn’t do that so we negotiated and we got that price down, and that took some time,” he said.

No one may be happier to see the work being done than business owners in the area.

“I’ve had to work every day to keep the place afloat; cut down staff, gone through major staff headaches just from services being cut and cooks’ hours being cut,” said Rob Dunn, Manager at Humpty’s Restaurant.

Dunn projected he had lost $165,000 in sales over the past five months.

That being said Dunn admitted he is looking forward to seeing the finished project.

“Hopefully it will attract more customers,” he said.

The final price tag for the project has not yet been released.

“We’ll release that once we are completely done,” said Dionne.

nmaxwell@panow.com

Follow on Twitter: @nigelmaxwell

by Nigel Maxwell

‘Big Dig’ enters home stretch

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