WILMINGTON – North Third Street’s image-lift continues as the city replaces its cable-suspended traffic lights and swaps its green street signs for blue.
The cables are disappearing per the North Third Street Improvement Project, in its final stage, as the city instead installs modern, black mast-arm poles.
The poles, planted at North Third Street intersections with arms that hold the signals over the streets, will also hold a new set of street-name signs in a reflective blue, replacing the old green.
The improvements will continue over the coming days northward to Campbell Street, six blocks from the Market Street intersection, a city bulletin said.
On the ground, the re-pavement of North Third to the Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway will carry on into mid-December.
As it happens, Third Street traffic will continue to encounter lane closures in each direction. At times, the project will close cross streets.
“Drivers are encouraged to use alternate routes if possible and should expect delays,” a city update stated.
But it marks the homestretch of the greater $10.4 million improvement project, which began in August 2011 chiefly to replace old underground utilities, bury power lines, lay new sidewalks and update landscaping.
Wilmington City Council on Oct. 2 approved $976,385 for the new asphalt, which officials said will have a minimum 10-year life. The strip hadn’t been repaved as such in more than 17 years, according the city, which accepted it from the N.C. Department of Transportation in 2009.
Contact Ben Brown at [email protected] or (910) 772-6335. On Twitter: @benbrownmedia
