Sugar Land residents living along 7th Street will be affected by construction relating to a drainage project set to begin in May. The project will aim to reduce roadway ponding during medium to extreme rain events, improve storm sewer capacity and fix mobility issues due to impassable roads and excessive drainage times, city of Sugar Land Senior Engineering Manager Jorge Alba said. Construction will occur in four phases, with the first being the creation of a relief line through the city-owned Baker Field, west of Sugar Land Middle School, to Ditch A-22 north of 7th Street. The remaining phases will take place along Muirwood Lane, 7th Street and on Woodlake Circle. The city of Sugar Land is funding the project, but cost for the construction phase is not yet known. Cost for the design phase is $239,975. Crews will work on one lane of the two-lane roads at a time, and properties along 7th Street will have continuous driveway access, Alba said. Services such as trash collection and mail delivery will be modified once construction is underway, he said. 7th Street drainage project map[/caption] The most disruption will be felt in the traffic flow along 7th Street as well as by parents, students and staff accessing Sugar Land Middle School, Alba said. The project stems from a regional analysis performed for the city by Lockwood, Andres & Newman Inc., which highlights nine areas that require improvements, Alba said. Similar work was performed near Colony Bend Elementary School at Austin Parkway and Williams Trace Boulevard, as well as another section of the Covington Woods subdivision north of the new project. The 7th Street drainage improvement project is slated for completion in April 2020, city officials said. “This is going to be intrusive and inconvenient, but after the construction, you will love it,” City Engineer Jessie Li said. “We know these types of improvement work.”