Main Street, Lake Placid, is seen here on Monday. (Enterprise photo — Andy Flynn)

LAKE PLACID — As the peak summer tourism season winds down, the village plans to reduce Main Street to one lane again starting next month.

Built into the village’s contract with Kubricky Construction, the company chosen to lead the Main Street overhaul, was a caveat that construction pause during the peak of the summer tourism season in July and August. This was a condition suggested back in 2019, when the project was being looked at by the village’s Main Street Task Force, a group of volunteers picked by then-Mayor Craig Randall to provide feedback on the multi-million dollar, multi-year Main Street streetscape and infrastructure project. Ultimately, the village allowed some construction to continue this summer, confined to off-street parking lots. Starting Sept. 7, construction will continue in earnest.

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Work slated

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The temporary traffic light at the Olympic Drive intersection will be turned back on next month. Drivers will only be able to travel north along Main Street, just like earlier this year. However, Hillcrest Avenue won’t be reduced to one-way traffic again — the village announced last week that the street would continue to be two-way.

Kubricky Construction crews will resume construction starting with water line work near the lower municipal lot across from NBT Bank and moving south, according to a news release from the village.

A second construction crew will install trench lines on the west side of Main Street, starting at the north end near the Saranac Avenue intersection and moving south to the lower lot across from NBT Bank. A third crew will tear out curbing, replace it and prep the new sidewalk along Main Street starting at the north end, on the west side of the street, before moving to the east side. Rubber mats will be put down until the sidewalk is finished, according to the village. A fourth crew will lay down the new sidewalk, which will be granite.

The village doesn’t have enough granite to complete the sidewalk, so most of the sidewalk will be complete, but the construction company plans to temporarily fill a portion of the sidewalk with concrete until next spring.

Customers should be able to access businesses along Main Street while sidewalks are being installed, except when crews are replacing the sidewalk directly in front of a business’s front door. Village officials have said business owners will be told in advance when to expect construction in front of their building.

“Crews hope to wrap up work around mid- to late-November,” a news release from the village reads. “However, this timeline is subject to change based on weather or other construction delays. A temporary road surface will be put down for the winter.”

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Station Street shuttle

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The village’s Station Street shuttle was expected to end service after Labor Day, but the village announced this week that it would end service on Friday.

The village’s Station Street shuttle, operated by the Essex County Transportation Department, took riders from a parking lot behind the North Elba-Lake Placid Historical Society’s History Museum to various stops along Main Street. This service was intended to open up more parking along Main Street for visitors and replace parking spaces displaced by construction in the lower municipal lot across from NBT Bank and the large municipal lot across from the post office.

“There was a reduction in staffing at the county level, as well as a reduction in ridership,” Community Development Coordinator Haley Breen said Friday. “In July, we had 1,374 riders, as of yesterday, only 590 for all of August so far.

“Also, parking had been reduced on Saranac Avenue and in Main Street lots over the summer due to construction, but that’s all wrapped up and they’re fully functional again, so we’ve restored a lot of parking,” she added. “The plan was always to reassess around the end of August. The county is hiring full- and part-time drivers, if anybody is looking!”

The Placid Xprss — which has a 40 to 45 minute rotation, anywhere from 25 to 30 minutes longer than the Station Street shuttle’s 15-minute rotation — will take over service to Station Street, according to a news release from the village.

The Placid Xprss runs from 6:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Sundays. The shuttle runs year-round, according to Breen.

Breen said the county will be adding a stop to the Placid Xprss route on Labor Day weekend to the North Elba Show Grounds from the Station Street lot.