A slight delay in the Bridge Avenue storm-sewer project probably won’t change the planned completion time of late October, said City Manager Paul Sparks.

The project, which has shut down part of Bridge near its intersection with Clark and Fountain streets, has diverted traffic onto Main Street, causing headaches for drivers.

The city is replacing a storm-sewer line that has been slowly collapsing. A parking lot project at nearby St. Theodore’s Catholic Church would have required digging up part of the road to run a new drainage pipe into the city’s storm sewer system, so the city decided to replace the collapsing pipe now instead of next spring, Sparks said.

But when crews working on the St. Theodore’s project started digging, they realized than an overlooked gas line and telephone line required them to get a different kind of pipe for the storrm drain extension, Sparks said. That slowed down the start of the project.

Still, &uot;It shouldn’t be a big delay,&uot; Sparks said.

The project, along with work on Front Street, has made it impossible to drive between Albert Lea and Fountain lakes without using Main Street, leading to increased traffic on Main and nearby side streets.

&uot;I know it’s a big mess and everybody’s kind of grumbling about it,&uot; Sparks said.

(Contact Dylan Belden at dylan.belden@albertleatribune.com or 379-3433.)