Athol’s School Street, nearby road work set for November finish

ATHOL – Several road projects underway in and around downtown Athol should be completed by mid-November, according to Assistant Public Works Director Paul Raskevitz.

Raskevitz said a “base course of pavement” has been applied to a long stretch of School Street.

“In the next couple of weeks,” he said, “they’ll come in and start raising structures and they’ll do the top course on School Street when they do the top course on ‘the alphabets’ – C Street, D Street, Ellsworth.”

In addition, he said, “We’re also going to be doing milling and paving on Tunnel Street and Ridge Avenue and the bottom of School Street. We’ll be doing all that by the end of October.”

All the projects are being done by P. J. Abert of Fitchburg.

The approximately $700,000 worth of work is being paid for by a combination of state and local funds, said Raskevitz.

“School Street, the alphabets, Ridge Avenue, and Tunnel [Street] are all Chapter 90,” he said, “Along with some Capital Program funds – what they call non-Chapter 90 money.”

Voters at June’s Annual Town Meeting approved the Capital Program Committee’s recommendation for $200,000 in non-Chapter 90 funding. The committee, with Town Meeting approval, set aside an additional $60,000 for road improvements in local cemeteries.

“We’re also paving the main entrance to Silver Lake Cemetery,” Raskevitz added.

Athol received just over $1 million in state Chapter 90 funds for FY26. This includes $834,691 from the $300 million budget initially approved by the Legislature, and an additional $233,000 from an $80 million supplemental appropriation.

“We hope to have all of our regular paving wrapped up by the first or second week in November,” Raskevitz said. “That’s our goal.”

Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com.