Salem council OKs road work

SALEM -- City council has given the go-ahead for a nearly $150,000 project to improve a section of Cunningham Road near the new Wal-Mart being constructed on the city's east side.
Legislators agreed Wednesday to borrow $200,000 for the work by issuing bonds. The city is borrowing more than is estimated for the project in case cost overruns occur, service Director Joe Julian explained today.
Construction is expected to start in about a month and will take nearly two weeks. Plans call for renovating about 2,010 feet of Cunningham near its intersection with Butcher Road. Improvements will include widening and repaving. Contractors also will level the intersection of Cunningham and Butcher, Julian said.
The project is being done in anticipation of increased traffic on Cunningham Road once the 183,000-square-foot Wal-Mart store begins operations. It is expected to open by year's end.
Money to pay for the road improvements will come from the city's capital improvements fund.
Julian said construction crews at Wal-Mart won't start work before 7 a.m. and will quit by 10 p.m. He was responding to construction noise complaints lodged with police earlier this week from city and Salem Township residents living near the construction site.
Because the store is being built in a commercially zoned area, crews have the right to work 24 hours a day, but contractors will limit hours.