Morning Glory repaving to begin next week

Residents who live on or near Morning Glory Avenue—a heavily traveled cross street that runs from City Park Lake to Cloverdale Avenue—may soon get relief from the sewer system project that has kept their street torn up since last summer. According to Department of Public Works Interim Director David Guillory, the street—which has been covered over with a temporary aggregate since early last fall—is scheduled to be repaved beginning next week. “It has been a killer on everybody over there,” Guillory says. “We get complaints daily about Morning Glory, hourly. We will be very glad to get this over with.” Work crews with Wharton-Smith Inc., the general contractor on the project, first unearthed Morning Glory last summer in order to replace a large sewer pipe that runs under the street. In the fall, after completing the replacement, they covered the street with a rough, temporary surface. Then work came to a standstill, or so it appeared to those who regularly travel the area. However, Guillory says the stretch of Morning Glory is just one leg of a much larger rehab project that has involved replacing 5.5 miles of force main that snakes from City Park through the LSU lakes and Southdowns to Valley Park. Replacing the pipe took from April until December; then pressure tests revealed several leaks. Locating the leaks and repairing them took place in January. Those repairs are nearly complete, and the road is scheduled to be repaved beginning on Feb. 11, which, Guillory says, is actually ahead of schedule. —Stephanie Riegel