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Lighter traffic due to COVID-19 keeping people at home means a stepped-up schedule for a highway project between Parksville and Bowser over the spring and summer.

Work has already begun on resurfacing the Parksville-Bowser stretch, with crews on the job during the day and overnight. Expect single-lane travel in the area.

“We continue to monitor traffic volumes around the province,” said Janelle Staite, regional deputy director for the Ministry of Transportation. “And around the Parksville and Bowser area, we saw there was an opportunity to have work happen in the day with not having a significant impact on travellers.”

The Ministry of Transportation is putting a total of $8.5 million into three Island resurfacing projects, including the 40 kilometres from Parksville to Bowser, eight kilometres between the McKenzie interchange and Leigh Road, and 2.5 kilometres of Highway 14 near the West Shore Parkway.

The McKenzie interchange to Leigh Road project will include resurfacing of on- and off-ramps. Work will happen overnight to minimize delays and is due to begin this spring.

The Highway 14 work is also set to begin later this spring, with all three resurfacing jobs due to be completed by the late fall.

All the resurfacing is being done by Peters Brothers Construction of Penticton.

Meanwhile, the $96-million McKenzie interchange project is still set to be completed this summer, while the southern Island’s other major public-construction effort — the Capital Regional District’s $775-million wastewater-treatment facility — remains on schedule and on budget.

The treatment facility is set to begin operations by Dec. 31.

Construction employers have been directed by provincial medical health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry to use new safety rules, designed to minimize the likelihood of contracting or transmitting the COVID-19 virus, including holding on-site meetings outdoors, keeping workers an appropriate distance apart, disinfecting common areas and shared surfaces daily, and maintaining a strict stay-home policy for any worker exhibiting symptoms such as sore throat, fever, coughing or sneezing.

Elizabeth Scott, deputy project director for the CRD wastewater treatment plant, said work is progressing well, albeit slowed down slightly by the pandemic precautions.

“It has had some productivity impact,” she said. “But we are continuing to make progress and we are still on track.”

Scott said that with a project built across various sites to accommodate things such as pumping stations, valves and pipes, progress has ebbed and flowed in terms of work and personnel since it began in 2016.

Now the project is at a high point in terms of workers, about 600.

Most of the buildings have been constructed, and mechanical and electrical work is now being installed.

Scott said the 19-odd kilometres of pipe to carry residual solid waste from the new plant in Esquimalt to the final treatment plant at Hartland Road landfill is now about 95 per cent completed.

The most challenging element of the entire project has been trying to work in an urban environment, she said. “For example, if we did some work overnight, we would minimize the impact on commuters, but we would have a larger impact on nearby residents.”

jwbell@timescolonist.com