Extra Canal Rd. lane comes earlier than expected

Extra Canal Rd. lane comes earlier than expected

Getting five lanes up and running on the Canal Road widening project was made possible when city officials asked the state to reconfigure the existing roadway to get the extra lane even as work continues. Pavement needs to be added to the south side of the road and the entire project won’t be completed until later this fall.
“We were only going to have the one lane,” Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon said of the eastbound traffic flow. “We measured the width. We said if we reduced the lane width, we could get five. We took a shot and ALDOT jumped right on board with the contractor and helped us. We did not expect five lanes this summer.”
That doesn’t mean there won’t be delays during the further construction on the project.
“There will be times when they are doing cuts that they’ll have but for the most part Friday evening through Sunday they are not working and you see how much they’re open during the week,” Kennon said. “So, it’s been a Godsend. This was a record weekend (May 16-18) guys. We had no real backups at all. We had one fender bender right down by the Tom Thumb that backed it up briefly but other than that it moved real well.”