October 11th was supposed to be a big day for the 281-1604 construction project. Last month the Regional Mobility Authority (RMA), the organization in charge of the project, announced one of the connector ramps would be open today, giving drivers a little relief.
The ramp that was supposed to be open would have connected north 281 to 1604 west. The RMA is reluctant to admit they're behind schedule. Instead, they told News 4 WOAI’s Mireya Villarreal they’ve pushed back the opening date to November in an effort to not confuse drivers.
"It's hard to say we're behind schedule. On our contract all four connectors have to be open February 7, 2013; so, it's been a moving target,” Leroy Alloway, RMA Director of Community Development, said. “We had targeted that we would be open by October, but again, this is an active construction project."
Alloway says the October date was never written into the construction project's official contract. So, for now, no one will be penalized or fined for the delay.
"Our contractor had some last minute work they needed to do; some hand work as far as putting some railings in and installing some lighting overhead sign bridges,” Alloway explained. “The major construction is done. But we still have a few things we need to do make sure everything is ready to go for drivers to actually use it."
The plan now is to open both east and west bound connecting ramps in November. The RMA does want to point out, while they didn't meet that October goal, they do expect to meet their February deadline.
