The 42nd Street construction has taken a toll on daily trips to Wendy’s for juniors and seniors. People living in the construction have had a gravel driveway onto a road almost made of orange cones for weeks. One question. When will it finally be done?

By the end of May, the first major portion of paving, and the pavement of driveways and sidewalks are to be done.

Beginning on Friday, June 3, 42nd Street from east of Wenig Road to Northwood Drive is expected to be closed. The date of which it will open back up is unknown.

According to Jennifer Shelby, the City of Cedar Rapids’ project manager for the 42nd Street project, they are working as hard as they can to open it back up as fast as they can.

“Thank you again for your collaboration and patience as we work to reconstruct 42nd Street. We are working as quickly as possible on improvements,” Shelby said.

What you may not know is Kennedy’s part in the parking for some of the residents living in construction. Kennedy has given permission for those residents to park in the southeast corner of our parking lot while the Northwood Drive intersection is closed, which will be about three weeks.

The city’s Paving for Progress campaign has helped complete 40 projects across Cedar Rapids. In 2016, there is approximately 8 miles of construction, with about $26.2 million invested into it from the local option sales tax. Paving for Progress has been active for three of its ten seasons of construction.

The 42nd Street construction is a project many wish was done, but because of the large amount of work planned it is going to take through the rest of the school year and through at least some of summer.

Every two weeks, there is a construction update on all Cedar Rapids construction projects. These are beneficial for what will be closed when, and where the detour will be.