VTrans: ‘Economic climate’ contributes to diverging diamond delays - WCAX

VTrans: ‘Economic climate’ contributes to diverging diamond delays

COLCHESTER, Vt. (WCAX) - The long-awaited Exit 16 diverging diamond project is wrapping up its first season of work.

The goal of re-designing the heavily trafficked I-89 exit in Colchester is to make it more efficient and safer for drivers, bikers, and pedestrians.

Crews are finishing relocating the utilities in the area, replacing the waterlines, and blasting the ledge. They’re also working on paving and doing work at night. They will be wrapping up in November and won’t return for phase two until late 2024 or early 2025, which project manager Michael Lacroix says is later than they would have preferred.

“A lot of folks have been asking me about why there’s going to be a gap between the two construction contracts. It’s really because we need to give the private utilities to have aerial transmission lines trying to relocate and get those poles out of the way. But, additionally, we also needed a little more time to save some money. The current economic climate, you know, the inflation, the cost into the construction industry has grown quite a bit,” said Michael Lacroix with the Vermont Agency of Transportation.

Lacroix says the exit should begin to take that diverging diamond shape in 2024. The goal is for everything to be wrapped up by summer 2026.

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