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Summer fun, meet summer construction.
Three major road projects and a long-term detour in Wilkes-Barre, two projects in the Back Mountain and a sewer installation in Hanover Township could make driving to family barbecues and fireworks displays this week more treacherous than normal.
Add in day-to-day maintenance - including bridge repairs Monday in Mountain Top on Interstate 81 and pothole patching four of the next five days on state Route 309 in Wright Township - and the mantra might well be: leave plenty of extra time to get around.
In Wilkes-Barre, the epicenter of the Luzerne County road construction boom, three main thoroughfares are under repair and will continue to be lined with orange traffic cones and "road work" signs long after the July 4 holiday.
Work on the $12 million Coal Street expansion and realignment is expected to continue into October, as is work to replace the masonry arch bridge supporting the stretch of River Street from near Wilkes-Barre General Hospital to the Cross Valley Expressway interchange.
Another section of River Street, northbound from Market Street past the former Hotel Sterling, will remain closed indefinitely as a safety precaution until the condemned structure is demolished. The blockade also affects Market Street and the Market Street Bridge, requiring motorists to plan ahead and map out alternate routes.
A few blocks north, a major reconstruction project on the bridge connecting North Street in Wilkes-Barre and Pierce Street in Kingston is reducing traffic from four lanes to two lanes - one in each direction - into 2014.
Wilkes-Barre city spokesman Drew McLaughlin called the overlap of the projects a...