Ground will be broken on a crossroads along Front Street, possibly as soon as a month’s time, for new access to the docks with work expected to take around three months.The intersection will direct heavy traffic into a new docks entrance and exit, where the Government-built X-ray scanning station is housed.The scanner will screen every container for drugs, guns and other smuggled contraband. The device itself was said to have been installed last summer.At the time, Government hoped for the facility to become operational this month.City of Hamilton secretary, Ed Benevides cautioned that the City’s schedule for the roadworks depends on Government’s separate timeline for the construction now underway at the container port, where work continues on the multimillion dollar scanner and its attendant facilities.“The dock work itself is not work the Corporation of Hamilton is running,” he said. “We have been doing a little prep work on the Front Street side, grinding up and taking out the stumps where casuarina trees have been cut down.”Said Mr Benevides: “Right now we are looking at starting close to the end of February, depending on when the work to the south side of the fence is ready.“They’re going to have to ramp up from the dock to road level, things like that. As we get closer to the start of work we’ll have a lot more to say about it. It’s a major thoroughfare and we don’t want to interrupt it until we have to.”He estimated the roadworks, by Front Street and Court Street, would take “between 55 and 65 working days”.“It depends on the weather, if school is in session, and a variety of other factors.“One thing we encountered in our work at the intersection of Parliament Street and Church Street was a lot of old underground services that had not been recorded. That causes delay for us.”Less complications are expected to be uncovered with new ground, Mr Benevides said.“Some of this will be brand new, so it won’t be as difficult for us to put in place. We anticipate this one will be easier because there are less issues involved.”This means that, come summertime, Hamilton should have a new four-way intersection, directed by traffic lights. These will be the new model, known as ‘Puffin’ lights, to handle pedestrian crossing.The pedestrian crossing over Front Street by the Cenotaph will disappear, Mr Benevides said.Acknowledging that the present-day junction occasionally produced “near misses”, he said: “We anticipate it will run better there. It will be much more orderly, in terms of traffic flow and pedestrians.“We won’t have pedestrians intermittently running out and cars not paying attention, or cars not letting the traffic out. And these lights will eventually network with the traffic lights all throughout the city.”Added Mr Benevides: “There have been no objections to it that I’m aware of.”He said that one concern raised by the public had been “what happens if there’s a strike at the docks”.“There will be chicanes there which can hold quite a number of trucks. These are the zigzags you go through when you’re waiting in a queue.“We can pack the trucks in while they wait, and any left over will be able to wait in the parking lane on the south side of Front Street.”The road leading to the container port will be open but only authorised vehicles will pass through a security checkpoint, either to drop off empty containers or pick up new ones.Some of the delays in the project account for the leftover tree stumps remaining along that section of Front Street, Me Benevides added.“We were preparing to move the docks entrance and at that time we cut the casuarinas down and left the stumps,” he said. “We continue to work with Government and the City Engineer works with them as well to get this work done as smoothly as possible.”The project was initially given a completion date of April of last year, with the construction on traffic access cited by Government as the cause of delays.