John Bowen, project manager with the GNWT's highways and engineering section, said that, while he's received no complaints about Highway 3, he is aware of people asking for advice on what they can do about their damaged vehicles.

"I've heard about people bottoming out with their vehicles, mud into radiators and stones on oil pans," he said.

"However, the contractors on site recognized the problem and started to pilot the people through one lane of traffic. Since then, I haven't heard of any damaged vehicles," said Bowen.

And motorcyclists been having trouble when it's wet. "In one instance, the contractor loaded a motorcycle in the back of a truck and took it across."

The best advice, is to be extremely patient. "If they feel uncomfortable about the situation, they should just stop, and the contractor can see them through, rather than getting into positions they can't handle," Bowen said.

Currently kilometres 136.5 to 165 are all under construction at various stages. Granular sections are no problem, but silty clay areas have been, he said. This section is between Rae and Fort Providence, and Nishi-Khon PCL Digaa is the contractor.

"Right now, it's fair to say, between the two contractors, there's 15 kilometres of silty clay subgrade but that changes on a daily basis."

Light vehicles are proceeding first now, then larger vehicles, with ruts being smoothed out.

"It's about a half-hour waiting period for the pilot car and another half hour to get through. And the conditions can change very rapidly. Silty clay can change rapidly. It may be open to two-way traffic soon."

This situation should continue, probably until Aug. 15. Then in early September, the sections should be asphalted.

South of Edzo, it costs close to $300,000 a kilometre to reconstruct and asphalt the highway.

For the Rae-to-Yellowknife section, the average cost is $900,000 to a $1 million dollars a kilometre, due to drilling, blasting and permafrost in the blasting area. But the good news is there won't be as much silty clay. And there's about 100 kilometres between Rae and Yellowknife.

By the end of September, there'll only be one hour of gravel between Yellowknife and the South. "About 30 years ago when I came North, the asphalt stopped in Manning," says Bowen.

There is money budgeted to begin work on the Rae-Yellowknife section. And with current funding levels, it will take about 10 years to finish, said Bowen.

Nishi-Khon PCL Digaa is working on a section further south of RTL's section.

"Their section is right next to ours. For the travelling public, we put up signs so they know who to phone if they have questions -- RTL construction begins and ends here," said Marvin Robinson, president of RTL.

RTL Robinson Enterprises Ltd.'s section is from kilometre 154.5 to 165.5.

Marvin Robinson, president of RTL, said there have been no complaints regarding his company's stretch of road.

"So far we've been able to keep the road in a granular state and kept it in a double-lane situation, but with the joint project -- there've been two-hour delays on trips, which has the drivers furious.

"And we had a tourist phone us mad, because they ripped their muffler off, but it wasn't in our section."

Other than that, the highway itself is in fairly decent driving condition, he said.