Good Wednesday morning and welcome back to Dawson Road Today! Today is the last day that I will be making regular posts to this blog, Dawson Road Today and it represents the 118th post since the blog was started in late May.
Yesterday the number of crew members on site was light. Many of the crew members and equipment that were originally working on the Dawson Road reconstruction project have been reassigned to the Edinburgh Road reconstruction project. No doubt, this has contributed somewhat to the Dawson Road project running past a completion date of September 30. Subcontractor, Stacey Electric, was on site down at the Speedvale Avenue end of Dawson Road. One of the metal poles that held the walk sign on the west side of Dawson Road had to be relocated a few feet, as can be seen in this picture.Stacey Electric will be doing the actual electrical reconnection. 
The Dawson Road reconstruction project is very close to being completed. Dawson Road between Shelldale and Speedvale Avenue has been fully reconstructed. The water mains and sanitary sewers have been completely replaced. A new storm sewer system has been installed to replace the old roadside ditch and culvert system. We now have curbs and gutters and sidewalks along both the East and West sides of Dawson Road. Either already complete or still in the works are adjustments to third-party utility services including Hydro, telephone, cable, fiber wire and natural gas. A lot of work is now complete.Work yet to be completed includes marking the new road surface with lane and bicycle lane lines. This work will likely be done this week weather permitting. We will have a bicycle lane on either side of Dawson Road. The access ways to business parking lots need to be graded and paved. This work will be subcontracted out. The final landscaping and grading from the curbs to the business property lines needs to be finished and this work will be subcontracted out. This will include the installation of several trees along each side of Dawson Road.
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| November 2, 2010 |
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| May 18, 2010 |
The following two pictures show Dawson Road as it was back in May shortly after the blog was started and Dawson Road as it appears as of yesterday afternoon.
Because this blog will not be maintained after today and because the construction work is not yet complete, I have created a dedicated Dawson Road Today page on my new plant blog, to which I'll post significant updates as they happen, until the completion of the project. You can get the latest status of Dawson Road Today at http://plantsforallblog.blogspot.com
Actual work on the Dawson road reconstruction project started on April 16 with Guelph Hydro on site. I started this blog in late May and posted every weekday, excluding holiday Mondays, until today. The purpose of the blog was to positively report on the status of the reconstruction project as a service to customers of the businesses of Dawson Road and to support and promote any Dawson Road businesses that wanted to be involved. On a personal note, I wanted to learn how to do a blog. Now after 118 posts, with an average of three hours per post in research and preparation, it is time to draw it to a close.
This has been a very positive experience for me in that I've made friendships with a lot of new people, learned a lot about construction, learned more about blogging and computer interaction on the Internet and made a lot of new contacts. On the downside, the extended disruption to easy access to the businesses of Dawson Road has been devastating to those businesses catering to the day-to-day retail trade. Even though I know of businesses, around the city, that have been forced out of business due to construction, I believe that all of the businesses on Dawson Road have managed to stay open. I respectfully ask that all consumers consider shopping with the businesses on Dawson Road. We are open and now have a beautiful new road with easy access.
As of the time this post is being published, I have had 2426 page views. I am very pleased with that and thank all those who have continued to read. I've received several supportive comments, e-mails, phone calls and personal communications and I'm grateful for that.
All of the posts in this blog have been prepared using Dragon Naturally Speaking voice recognition software. That is another thing that I wanted to learn how to use. I don't think that it allowed me to get done any faster; but I think it made the words flow more smoothly and naturally.
The most popular browsers used by visitors to this blog are - Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari in order of preference. The majority of page views are from Canada, which may seem only natural; but I have had a strong readership from the US and Great Britain, with a smattering of readership from Asian and South American countries. Page views by computer operating systems were ranked - Windows at 66%, Macintosh at 25%, with the remaining 9% coming from Other Unix, Blackberry and Linux.
I would like to thank
- Charles Groen, Project Inspector from Pitura Husson Ltd. for his regular updates on the status and details of the project that formed the backbone of most of the technical information I used in the blog
- Jennifer Hazelton, Project Manager from Pitura Husson Ltd. for her presentation and presence at the public information sessions back in March and her continued support in supplying me with drawings and technical data
- Stacy Hare, Communications Coordinator, Corporate Communications, Information Services, City of Guelph - my liaison with the city in providing updates from the city
- Linda Osmond, my wife - we will be celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary on November 7 (nothing has stopped me before from interjecting a few personal notes) for contributing to the blog on several occasions with pictures, interviews and insight
- the construction crew of Bel-Air Construction - for doing a good job and showing consideration to the users and businesses of Dawson Road, for answering my multitude of questions and providing their insight
- Canada Post for making regular postal delivery, especially when access was physically difficult. You may be inclined to take this service for granted but it is essential to the life of a small business
- Guelph Transit for providing regular and consistent bus service on route 22
- City of Guelph garbage collection for getting here on a regular basis
So for one last time, come on down, I would love to see you on Dawson Road Today!
Brian
Plants For All
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