OBSERVER Photo by M.J. Stafford Road signs get installed last week at the intersection of Lake Shore Drive and Central Avenue in Dunkirk, as a project to renovate Lake Shore Drive nears completion.

It looks like the road work on Lake Shore Drive in Dunkirk is finally ending, just in time for wintry weather.

“The majority of the project is completed. There are a couple items left to complete the project,” said EJ Hayes, the city’s deputy director of planning and development, this week.

“The subcontractor will be coming out in the next couple weeks to complete the striping and removal of the old crosswalk markings and the contractor is waiting on a few components for the pedestrian poles to come in that are on back order and will install them as soon as the parts arrive,” he added.

In fact, workers were installing control boxes for the pedestrian poles last week at the Lake Shore Drive and Central Avenue intersection.

“Our city electrician is installing the new back-lit lighthouse city logo on the gateway feature pillar and that will be completed this week,” Hayes added.

That logo has already been installed. The pillar is located next to the sidewalk a few yards east of the Lake Shore/Central intersection.

The project has installed center medians and bumpouts that are meant to be pedestrian-friendly, along with trees, flowers and other landscaping.

It’s had its share of critics, notably Common Council member Nancy Nichols, who voted against it earlier in the year and raised more concerns about it at the last council meeting Oct. 18.

“Instead of hiring a landscaper for our median projects down there… take pictures of what the existing project looks like right now,” she suggested to Mayor Wilfred Rosas. “Therefore, they could look at it in the spring or when it does start to get filled in with unwanted weeds, (and) our superb parks department could take of it for themselves, by themselves, because they do such an excellent job.”

Rosas responded, “I can tell you the decision has been made to bring in a professional landscaping company that can also offer training to our guys, so that we actually know what the expectation is to maintain it.”

Nichols also questioned if the plantings would survive the winter.

“The engineering that goes on behind these projects is very extensive,” Rosas said. “If they are to plant plants that can’t deal with the environment, then boy, are we doing things the wrong way.”

He added that the state Department of Transportation engineered the project and has done similar work in other places.