Balltown Road getting fresh blacktop in overnight hours

PHOTOGRAPHER: Steven Cook

Nighttime paving work is under way along part of the Balltown Road corridor, part of a larger set of ongoing paving projects around the region, state officials said.

In Niskayuna, workers are removing the top layer of pavement along Balltown Road from Union Street all the way north to the Rexford Bridge, then replacing the pavement with a new layer, Department of Transportation spokeswoman Carol Breen said.

Along the way, workers are making adjustments to the detectors for traffic signals, she said, updating the technology to help them work more efficiently.

The work itself is to go on from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. nightly, Breen said, helping to keep traffic moving during the day.

“We do it at night because of the extremely heavy traffic volume through there,” she said. “We’re just not able to close lanes during the day and still manage the amount of traffic.”

Work in Niskayuna began last week and is expected to wrap up at the end of September, Breen said. That schedule could be extended if the weather doesn’t cooperate.

The work is part of a larger set of projects bid together. Callanan Industries of Albany won the contracts for a total project cost of $6.3 million.

Elsewhere in the project, sections of Route 50 in Ballston, Route 146 in Clifton Park, Route 9 off Exit 16 of Interstate 87 and a section of Route 9 in Warrensburg are being repaved, Breen said.

The six-mile stretch in Ballston, between Lake Hill Road in Burnt Hills and Ballston Avenue in Ballston Spa, began earlier in the summer and was completed in August, Breen said.

Work on Route 146 in Clifton Park, between Clifton Park Center and Route 9, is to begin in mid-September and be completed by the end of October.

The new road surfaces are expected to last 10 to 15 years.