Traffic Flow/ Parking Updates:
Beginning tomorrow (Wednesday, May 24th), contractors will be extending the construction zone further up Main Street to include adjusting the road closure area. The road closure will now begin on the east side of the intersection of Main and First Street. Once this is in place, traffic on First Street in front of Backwoods will become a temporary ‘dead end’.
At some point before the holiday weekend, we will be installing temporary 2-hour parking from 8a-8p on the A and First Street sides of Triangle Park. Residents, business owners and employees in this area are encouraged to use the First Street Parking lot.
Trespassing:
There continues to be challenges with unauthorized motorists and pedestrians entering the construction zone. This is trespassing. While a small percentage of this is occurring during operating hours and is likely accidental, the more concerning percentage is the deliberate after hours and weekend trespassing that is occuring by some of our locals. If you open the gated construction zone that is clearly marked with a ‘Road Closed’ sign to drive in or walk through the construction zone, you will now be cited for trespassing. For the public’s safety and liability concerns, contractors cannot allow the public to enter the construction zone. If you move or slide the fencing to allow access for non-emergency purposes, or leave open the fencing, you could very well put yourself and/or others in harm’s way and may be held accountable. If trespassing continues to be problematic and contractors are forced to utilize ‘hard barriers’, this will impact emergency response time if there is an accident or incident that occurs in or on the other side of the construction area, which includes our riverfront. Let’s work together so this doesn’t happen.
If for some reason you have a legitimate reason that you need to enter or pass through the construction zone, please contact the City and we will work with contractors to arrange this, safely. They have been incredibly accommodating. And ‘thank you’ to those of you who have already been doing this.
Riverfront Access {Changes from yesterday}:
As mentioned above, the contractors have been incredibly accommodating. They understand how important access to our riverfront is and have generously worked with the City and Kwik Star to make adjustments to the construction zone area to allow for some motorists to access our riverfront parking lot. On a trail run basis, motorists in standard size vehicles are permitted to access the riverfront parking lot through the Kwik Star parking lot to get to Big Buoy’s Tiki Bar, their boat slips and riverfront park. Unfortunately, there is not enough clearance to allow for vehicles pulling boats or trailers of any kind, or oversized vehicles, safely through the Kwik Star parking lot to the riverfront. The boat launch is closed for this reason. If at any point this becomes problematic due to patrons trying to bring boats or trailers into or through the Kwik Star parking lot, we run into traffic flow concerns, or other safety concerns; motorist access to the Riverfront Parking Lot and Big Buoys may be temporarily discontinued. Let’s work together to make sure we can keep motorist access open to our riverfront as much as possible!