How 'corduroy road' discovery may affect uptown Waterloo LRT timeline

It is unclear how the discovery of a so-called corduroy road will affect the construction timeline for the light rail transit system, officials say.

"We really don't know the implications of the corduroy road," Avril Fisken, manager of communications for GrandLinq, told CBC News. "We still need to understand what's the extent of the roadway and what we need to do after this."

• 'Corduroy road' logs found under Waterloo LRT construction

GrandLinq, the construction consortium building the Ion light rail transit line between Kitchener and Waterloowas told late last year it waspossibilea corduroy road dating back to the earliest settlers in the region might be found under King Street in uptown Waterloo.

On March 11, construction crews discovered wood about two to three meters under the roadway and they halted work on the LRT line immediately.

Fiskensaid it was confirmed to be a corduroy road late Monday. A region official said it's believed the log road dates back to before 1877.

We really don't know the implications of the corduroy road.- Avril Fisken, GrandLinq

An archeologist with the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport has been called in and is now researching the find.

"We're trying to understand where the road is. Under the guidance of the archeologist, we're doing some test pits," Fiskensaid.

"We're basically mapping out the length of the road. Once we understand the length of the road, we'll expose it, and we'll take pictures, we'll document it, we'll get any information we can," she said.

Once it's documented, LRT constructioncan begin again.

Businesses worried about delays

Waterloo business owners are concerned this discovery could delay the project even more.

• 'Corduroy road' found under King Street worries Waterloo businesses

In February, businesseswere told King Street would be closed for twice as long as originally planned so that GrandLinq could do more work than initially discussed. Instead of completing only wet utility work, crews will now also upgrade and relocate underground services, reconstruct the road bed, initiate the LRT track and put in stop areas.

Stores and businesses remain open and are accessible topedestrians, albeit with a changeable pattern of detours. Drivers are also able to access parking lots.

Merchantshave been told work would be completed by Nov. 15, but at the Uptown Waterloo Business Improvement Area meeting Tuesday morning, some expressed concern construction could continue past that and into the Christmas shopping season.

"I don't know how they can stick to their November timeline when they find things like this corduroy road," Andy Cox, owner of King Street Cycles, told CBC News. "It's obviously going to take some time to deal with, yet they won't admit to having to bump their end timeline."

Working on other sections for now

Fiskensaid it is too early to tell if they will need revisethe Nov.15 deadline. While work in uptown Waterloo has come to a standstill, she said they will instead move crews to the King Street and William Street site.

"We'll begin work there, we'll do a little bit more than we had originally planned in that intersection," she said, adding they have asked the City of Waterloo for a bylaw exemption for noise so they can "double shift" the work that needs to be done.

"So any delays that we may experience, we hope to make up," she said.