Work Continues on Broadway

The Broadway Streetscape project in downtown Newport is steadily making progress, but there’s still plenty of work ahead.

This week, drainage work will continue from Mann Avenue to Cranston Avenue.

Curbs will be installed from Mann Avenue to Street.

Temporary lighting will be installed in the same area.

Expect Spring Street from Bull Street to Broadway to be closed daily. Spring Street will be reopened and parking will be restored by the end of each day.

We’ve attached a detour map to this article, but for the highest resolution, you can go here.

The $5.8 million contract with Cardi Corporation is to resurface the roadway and upgrade pedestrian facilities. The project was designed using Complete Streets principles; the state’s Complete Streets Law requires that all federal- and state-funded road construction projects equally consider motor vehicles, bicyclists, public transportation and pedestrians. Completion is scheduled for fall 2016.

The project was delayed for quite some time before work finally began this spring. And it took some creative budgetary muscle flexing on the part of the city.

Funding for the project had been stalled since Federal Highway Trust Fund money stopped being doled out to states during the federal shutdown and sequester last year.

The City Council kickstarted the repairs after finding a creative alternative — loaning money to the state — in January.

Local officials called the $1.3, interest-free loan a “strategically innovative funding solution” to detour a backlog in federal highway funds and finally get the Broadway Streetscape Project completed. It allowed the project status to tick over to “approved for construction” from “pending” status and the city will be paid back within two years, according to the contract approved by the City Council.

Federal money is paying for 80 percent of the project costs.

Business owners along Broadway have been suffering from the deplorable road conditions and many have invested in their buildings in anticipation of the streetscape project’s completion. They have also suffered years of construction leading up to the current state of affairs as crews made infrastructure improvements underground to sewer lines and other projects.