Residents of Tamaqua have spoken. And the borough listened.

Starting on Monday, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation will be in town to help enhance and prolong a few important roads beginning with Route 209, also known as Broad Street.

“We will be paving U.S. 209 in Tamaqua between West Cottage Avenue and Patterson Street over the next two weeks beginning Aug. 5,” said Sean Brown, Safety Press Officer of PennDOT.

According to Tamaqua Borough Manager Kevin Steigerwalt, the goal is to have this particular project completed in two weeks.

“They’re supposed to start on West Broad Street and mill-up the driving lanes; not the shoulders or parking lanes,” said Steigerwalt “They’re going to do that all the way to the five points. They’re going to skip over the railroad tracks and pick it back up the first block of East Broad. They’re going to continue to the railroad tracks by Santander bank.”

Steigerwalt said they’ve received many complaints about the road conditions, which the borough has backed, and PennDOT has honored.

“It’s overdue, it really is,” Steigerwalt said. “We’ve gotten a number of complaints about the condition and we agree; we’ve had our own complaints that we’ve forwarded to PennDOT as well. One of the guys from the maintenance district came over and they agreed that it needs to be moved up on the schedule. They’re shifting some funds around and the maintenance district is going to do this to try and extend the life of the road.”

Additionally, a second paving project will begin on Spruce and Lehigh streets.

“They’re coming in and rehabilitating the detour route for us, which is fantastic,” Steigerwalt said. “They’re doing ADA crosswalks all along the detour route and they’re going to mill and resurface all of Spruce Street and that section of South Lehigh Street. We’re going to try to make it as painless as possible.”

PennDOT will begin working on both projects from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on business days. The Spruce and Lehigh work will be done by J.D. Eckman Inc., a contractor of PennDOT.

“Their plan is to mill Spruce Street on Monday, Lehigh Street on Tuesday, and start paving on Wednesday if all goes well,” Steigerwalt said. “They thought they could have all of the paving done in a week for that project.”

In regard to the Broad Street work, the plan is to maintain two-way traffic throughout the duration of the project. Steigerwalt said to expect delays regardless.

“They’re going to work on one half of the road and leave the other half open to traffic, and then they’ll switch,” he said. “Whenever you have a construction project, it’ll slow down traffic; that’s a given. I would encourage people to avoid the area as best they can, if possible, and be prepared for delays or having to stop at times.”

The borough workers have been raising and lowering manholes throughout town over the past two weeks in preparation for both projects. Steigerwalt also mentioned there’s one more major project on the horizon, but motorists won’t have to worry about it for a while.

“I’m told next year, they plan on doing Route 309. The plan is to have all of 309 done from county line to county line.”