CANTON – Amid fears by merchants and others, village Superintendent Brien Hallahan is to meet with Main Street business owners and residents affected by the construction on Main Street that will start this spring.

Hallahan will be in the Municipal Building basement from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 27, discussing the 35 questions and suggestions collected last month from 50 Main Street business owners in a door-to-door survey. The results compiled by businessmen Brad Mintener and Adam Jaffe, including the 24 answers given recently by state Department of Transportation Region 7 officials in Watertown, plus any new questions he can answer.

The two-year Main Street reconstruction project will include all new water and sewer lines, new sidewalks and benches, new trees and street lights (replacing the Victorian lights) for a mile of Main Street from the Grasse River bridges to Stiles Avenue.

The project will be a major disruption in the routine of downtown, and business people are concerned about how their enterprises, their employees and their customers will manage while work proceeds.

Some specific questions concern scheduling of the various construction sequences and communicating them to people who will be most affected, detours, and ability of people to reach their businesses while work goes on.

The work is due to start in May. The first of it is expected to be milling and resurfacing the parts of Riverside Drive and State Street that will carry detour traffic around the work zone to State Rt. 310.

Mintener says the business people are concerned that, just as the work is starting, graduations at the Potsdam and Canton colleges will be bringing heavy traffic to the region. And the first weekend in June is the date of the annual Dairy Princess parade and other activities in Canton.

Hallahan and state Department of Transportation (DOT) Region 7 officials in Watertown have provided several ways for people to get answers to questions during the project:

• An engineer-in-charge will be available at a field office on or near the project, to be reached in person, by telephone or email

• Hallahan himself has said he will have an open-door policy at the Canton Municipal Building, Mintener says; telephone 386-4700, email supt@cantonnewyork.us

• The DOT’s project web site, www.dot.ny.gov/cantonvillageproject, has general information and a list of “frequently asked questions” and answers

• DOT Regional Design Engineer Robert H. Curtis can be reached at 317 Washington St., Watertown, NY 13601; cantonvillageproject@dot.state.ny.us; or 785-2236

• The Canton Village and Town website, at www.cantonnewyork.us, is operated by Canton Director of Economic Development Linda McQuinn, 386-2851

• At the Canton Chamber of Commerce, Executive Director Sally Hill is in the office in the Canton Municipal Building weekday mornings; 386-8255, www.cantonnewyorkchamber.org.

Mintener said a Canton Main Street Business Owners Committee is forming to work with the community, the media, and the chamber of commerce to communicate information about the project, as well as to let the public know that the various restaurants, retail stores and businesses, law offices, insurance agencies, and non-profit organizations are open for business during the two years of the project.