By CHERYL SCHWEIZER

Staff Writer

MOSES LAKE — The overnight closures of Stratford Road are about over, and the current construction project is slated for completion by late November.

Stratford is a major north-south route in Moses Lake and commercial corridor. The nightly closures of the road will end Friday.

“There may be a couple of nights of work, but the consistent nightly closures are finished,” said Lynne Lynch, communications and marketing specialist for the city of Moses Lake.

Paving should be complete by the first week in November, Lynch said.

Joe Kiyohara, project manager, said the project deadline had been extended through Nov. 24. “Unforeseen conditions have added working days,” Kiyohara said.

Most of the road surface has been replaced from the Stratford-Broadway intersection to the end of the project, about 80 feet past the intersection of Stratford and Mart roads. But there’s still a lot of digging going on: Crews are working on upgrades to the traffic lights, and replacing them where necessary.

On Wednesday, construction crews were working on replacing the traffic light at Stratford and Valley roads. The sidewalk was demolished on both sides of the road to give workers room.

Crews were digging trenches to accommodate tunneling equipment, which eliminates the need to dig a trench across the entire intersection. Jacob Villanueva ran the modest-looking piece of equipment that does the actual tunneling.

Villanueva used a pair of joysticks to maneuver the drill bit, guided by a video camera. “It’s a blast. I get to play with toys and dirt all day,” he said.

Conduit is pulled back through the tunnels for electrical wiring, as well as for fiber optic, water and gas lines.

The paving and traffic light replacement is the second half of a two-year project to upgrade Stratford Road. Water mains were replaced along the length of the road in 2019.

Moses Lake city engineer Richard Law said in an earlier interview that the Stratford-Valley intersection is being widened to accommodate a second left-turn-only lane and a second northbound through lane. The additional through lane will go all the way to the end of the project.

Curbs and the stormwater system have been upgraded, and sidewalks on the east side from Valley Road to the end of the project are being moved to accommodate the extra traffic lane.

The estimated total project cost is about $1.7 million. C&R Tractor, of Kelso, is the contractor.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.