<span style="font-weight: 400;">A sewage spill along State Road A1A over the past weekend was the latest incident causing emergency road work along the island’s main thoroughfare, causing new traffic woes to residents who have by now become inured to seeing orange barrels along their route for the past several years.</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Construction crews contracted by the county’s public works department suddenly appeared at the intersection of A1A and the Wabasso bridge causeway last Saturday to fix a sewer main rupture that had sent raw sewage bubbling up. The crews managed to contain the spill on Saturday, took Sunday off, and were finishing up covering the new pipes with dirt on Monday.</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Workers said they managed to repair the sewage pipes by digging holes on both the north and the south side of the Wabasso causeway road along the west side of A1A so they would not have to dig up the road and interrupt traffic at the busy intersection of A1A and County Road 510. The orange cones around the backhoes and other construction equipment only slightly affected the turn lanes at the intersection but never stopped traffic from going through altogether.</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">While construction crews showed up suddenly without warning on north A1A at the approaches to the Wabasso bridge for the emergency sewer repair, motorists were still waiting for work to start at the Pelican Plaza shopping and office center, despite signs that had gone up earlier this month announcing the start of more construction at that site on Aug. 17.</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">The signs were posted both northbound and southbound along A1A at the intersection of A1A with Bahia Mar Road next to the Village Beach Market.</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">A spokesman for the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) said the project involves improved signalization at the intersection with a push-button system to allow pedestrians to request a red light to stop motor vehicle traffic. Despite the signs, no work was done at the site last week and no information was available on a new start date.</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Many pedestrians from the Bethel Creek residential area reachable via the Bahia Mar road use the intersection to cross the busy state road en route to the beach. Many carry beach gear like surfboards, umbrellas and the like, and can’t scamper quickly across.</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Although this latest construction is characterized as a fairly small job on the scale of FDOT projects, the department spokesman refused to commit to a start or completion date. He said that FDOT has up to 120 days to complete any project, although he notes that experienced contractors will try to finish the job as quickly as possible long before that deadline. </span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">“The goal is to finish as soon as possible,” the spokesman said, “but it’s all weather-permitting, and we’re going into the hurricane season, so you never know.”</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">There will be no road closures during construction and traffic is not expected to be interrupted, the spokesman said.</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Later this summer, at the request of the Town of Indian River Shores, FDOT is also scheduled to install a new pedestrian crossing on A1A at the 7-11 convenience store and the CVS pharmacy because of increasing pedestrian traffic in the area with new residential construction projects nearing completion on the oceanside.</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Meanwhile, further north along A1A across the road from the Indian River Shores town hall, a vacant lot is being used as the staging area for heavy construction equipment and big sewer pipes for the septic tank-to-sewer conversions for the homes along Beachcomber Lane.</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Along South A1A, the orange barrels are still up along the causeway to the 17</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">th</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Street Bridge, one of two main connections between the island and the mainland where the four-year bridge reconstruction project is about 98% completed.</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">But there will be no rest for the weary motorists along A1A. Once that bridge construction is completed, a new South A1A rebuilding project will start with road resurfacing from south of the bridge to the St. Lucie County line. That project will also involve the addition of a sidewalk along parts of the road on the ocean side.</span>