The City of Kamloops says work to build the Sixth Avenue Bike Lane downtown will be split into two phases.

Capital Projects Manager, Darren Crundwell, tells NL News supply issues mean the plan now is to build the bike lane from Columbia to Battle this year, and from Battle to Lansdowne next year.

“Fortunately, there is some irrigation and things like that that we were able to get the pipe for that, that has been a bit of a challenge this year, but we have had issues with light poles, light standards those types of things, anything electrical,” he said.

“We tried and ordered as much in advance as we can but it has been a bit of a challenge right now as everyone knows.”

With a longer than expected spell of warmer weather in Kamloops this year, Crundwell says work on Phase 1 of the project is set to wrap up by the end of November, which was when the entire project was initially set to be completed.

“If we get about about another month in, I would be pretty happy. That would allow us more than enough time to get to the end of the first phase here,” Crundwell said, noting crews will resume work on Phase 2 from Battle to Lansdowne by early April.

“And we should only be another month to two months after that, so it will be done in the spring of 2023,” he added. “[The phases were] purely just the amount of work that we could get done this year and we communicated it as soon as we knew we’re not going to get the whole thing finished and we’re waiting for materials anyway.”

“We just picked a logical point to phase the work and have enough work to wrap up this year and come back next.”

The Sixth Avenue Bike Lane is part of a larger multi-use pathway project to connect Sahali to downtown Kamloops, with Crundwell noting that work around the Summit and Notre Dame interchange is expected to wrap up in about two weeks.

“We’ll be 100 per cent done on that one this year,” he said. “I am being told that w just had a bit more work around the interchange than we anticipated but it is basically done, the majority of it

“The lights are up as well, I see, so we should be getting the signals and everything activated there within the next two weeks.”