Clear Autumn Allows Town To Catch Up With Road Work

By Steve Bigham

The town highway department’s frantic autumn push to catch up on its roadwork projects is being called a big success this week by its director.

A rainy summer had put the town’s paving plans several weeks behind schedule. But Public Works Director Fred Hurley says the work should be caught up before the snow flies.

 “The weather killed us schedule-wise. It held up our drainage work and it also held up our contract pavers. But the dry weather has been a godsend. We’ve been able to push out work every day, day after day. We needed this long stretch of good weather to get back on schedule,” Mr Hurley said.

Back in August, Mr Hurley and his staff appeared to be in a bit of a panic as one project after another began to stack up.

“We’re six weeks behind on paving because of drainage work and road preparations are also behind,” Mr Hurley said at the time. “This is one of the worst summers I can remember as far as the weather goes.”

But as the middle of November approaches, the highway department has managed to hit almost every road on its list – equal to about 8-10 miles of paving. Last month, contractors completed paving the traffic circuit of New Lebbon, High Bridge, High Rock, and Gray’s Plain roads.

Boggs Hill Road was also paved this summer and Palestine Road is close behind. Paving projects have also taken place on Pine Tree Hill Road, Crabapple Lane, Kale Davis, Osborne Hill, Walnut Tree Hill, and Paugussett roads. Workers have also begun work on Huntingtown Road, although that project will be ongoing for the next two years.

By accelerating its contracted services, the highway department was able to hire contractors to do several smaller jobs along with the highway crews. This enabled the town to be ready whenever there was a hole in the paving schedule of the big contractors like Tilcon Tomasso.

“If you don’t have the roads ready, you can’t pave them,” Mr Hurley said.

The 2000 road improvement plan should be completed by Thanksgiving.