Latest on Lewelling: Underground Construction Nears Completion

For students at , their school year began with construction workers and conjested traffic directly outside their classrooms.

However, after nearly months of setbacks, it appears as if this may all come to an end soon as the Lewelling Boulevard streetscape improvement project is back on track and nearing completion.

"[The Alameda County Public Works Agency and the contractors] have been very accomodating," said Principal Theresa McEwen.

Despite having several students tardy because of traffic congestion and hearing noise from the machines during testing, McEwen says, students don't seem to mind the construction too much.

When , the public works agency said it expected to finish by the end of summer.

Although crews missed that mark, the agency says 95 percent of the hardscape construction has been finished.

"Unfortunately its a sequential operation — you can't have all the utility companies working at the same time due to space and safety," said project manager James Chu.

The agency worked with various subcontractors as well as AT&T, Comcast and PG&E to move overhead power lines underground for nearly 70 homes along Lewelling and East Lewelling Boulevard.

Chu says subcontractors finished paving the roads last weekend and the agency is now working with AT&T to remove the last of the power poles and overhead wires.

The next phase of the project will be landscaping. However, Chu says it is still difficult to give an exact date of completion for the entire project.

Funded by a half-cent sales tax, the completed project will .