Tunnelling under 105th Street in downtown Edmonton has come to a halt because a piece of machinery isn’t powerful enough to get through a patch of tough clay.
EPCOR crews have been working on the Capital City Downtown Plan to upgrade the area’s storm water system.
The machine, called a microtunnel boring machine (MTBM), doesn’t have enough hydraulic power to finish the tunnel, said EPCOR spokesperson Tim LeRiche.
“It’s like a power drill … it might have enough torque to drive a screw but sometimes you have to put your shoulder into it to drive the screw,” said LeRiche.
The machine can’t be taken out through the tunnel it’s in because of machinery behind it, said LeRiche.
Instead, crews will dig a tunnel from street level down to the machine. LeRiche said they’ll likely have to winch the MTBM out, add the hydraulic system, then lower it back into the hole to finish the job.
Traffic delays
LeRiche said the original tunnelling job was supposed to wrap up in April, but now it’s expected to finish in December.
LeRiche said as of April 4, southbound lanes on 105th Street south of Jasper Avenue will be closed for half a block. Norhtbound lanes will be down to one lane for a short distance as drivers approach Jasper Avenue.
Traffic along 105th Street south of Jasper Avenue will be disrupted until Dec. 2018 after EPCOR crews ran into storm water tunnelling issues. (Supplied/EPCOR)