Motorists being detoured due to construction on several Charlotte County bridges and roadways will have to put up with detours for just a few more months, said county public works officials.

Bridge and stormwater work at Melbourne Street, and Elkcam and Peachland boulevards, which all began late last year, is expected to be complete by mid-May. And according to county project engineer Chuck Koons, at least two of the three projects — Melbourne Street and Elkcam Boulevard — are “on schedule and under budget.”

“At Elkcam, the northbound bridge was completed just before the end (of 2011). On the southbound side, the foundation is in and we’re starting to put the deck in,” Koons said. Construction at that location is scheduled to be complete in May, he said.

Work on the Melbourne Street bridge, which links U.S. 41 to Harborview Road in Charlotte Harbor, also is humming right along. That project, which began in October and called for the bridge to be replaced, is expected to wrap up in mid-April, Koons said.

On the other side of town, construction happening on Peachland Boulevard between Harbor and Forrest Nelson boulevards is expected to be complete by mid-May, said John Degiovine, a project manager with the county stormwater management division.

As part of a county analysis conducted of the canals and storm drainage system in the county, the culverts running beneath a section of Peachland Boulevard, as well as some 40 other structures in the greater Port Charlotte region — an area that extends roughly from Murdock east to Kings Highway — have been deemed to be “at or near failure,” Degiovine said.

Installed in the 1960s, the metal culverts have deteriorated to such a point that, if left untouched, they will cause the roads running above them to collapse, Degiovine said. “All have exceeded their life expectancy, in some cases by 200 percent.”

As a result, the culverts are being replaced with larger, more resistant structures that allow canals to handle greater storm events or “a hundred-year storm.”

“It’s a continuous thing,” Degiovine said. “Every year we try to do two or three. And we try to move them around so (construction) isn’t occurring all in the same area.”

“We realize it’s an impact on the residents and we try to mitigate the inconvenience as best as we can,” he said.

Under the contract, construction is due to be complete in May, with incentives being offered to the general contractor if work is done before then, Degiovine said.

The county has budgeted roughly $6.6 million for all three capital
improvement projects.

Email: bbarbosa@sun-herald.com