Scale house upgrades are complete at the City of Lethbridge’s Waste and Recycling Centre.
The upgrades will allow the scale house to accommodate twice as many inbound and outbound customers.
“We just finished up construction on this project. The difference between the old and the new is we now have four scales, which is a doubling of capacity from where we were at before. During peak hours, we can now handle double the traffic,” says Waste and Recycling Engineer Mark Molesky.
According to Molesky, the scale is in the same location where it was before. “We had a temporary construction pattern in place for the duration of the construction, but we’ve now reverted back.”
Molesky explains the one change is there’s now two lanes for customers to utilize.
“On the canopy, it lists whether the lane is open or closed. If both lanes are open, you queue at each lane separately. The third lane is a bypass lane, that’s just meant for contractors and internal traffic that aren’t utilizing the scale house,” Molesky notes. “We ask all site visitors to check in at the scale house.”
The cost of the upgrade was close to $4 million, Molesky states. “It was funded through Capital Improvement programs.”
Molesky adds the goal of the project was to reduce idling times and make it faster for customers during peak times. “Before the renovation, there would be a long backup. This way, we get everybody through faster. Overall, everything runs a little bit smoother now.”
Commercial traffic at the site is pretty steady, Molesky notes. “With residential, there’s quite a peak in the spring. People kind of do their spring cleaning. Saturdays in the spring are particularly heavy traffic days.”
