Overview:
Athol Public Works Director Paul Raskevitz has announced that several roads in the town will undergo resurfacing after Memorial Day, causing detours and delays. The work will cost approximately $900,000, with most of the funding coming from state Chapter 90. The work will include full reconstruction of the roads, which will be slower, due to the full-depth reclamation process. Main Street will also be repaved by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, with the aim of increasing pedestrian safety by adding pedestrian crossing lights.
ATHOL – Public Works Director Paul Raskevitz wants motorists to be prepared for some disruptions around town, as a number of roads are slated to undergo resurfacing, resulting in detours and delays.
“We’re going to pave Bryant, from Bryant to Spring, Elm Street, Lindsay Lane, Marshall, High Knob Road, Ridge Road, Craigin, Hill, Glendale, Froman, and Patrick,” he said. “Everything’s going to have to be reclaimed. All these roads have gone beyond the curve where we’re unable to mill and fill them now; they have to be full reconstruction. They’ll all be ground back to gravel.”
Raskevitz said the work will cost about $900,000, most of which will come from state Chapter 90 funding. The work is slated to begin on May 25.
“There will be some town funds as well,” he said, “through capital funding approved last year.
“Because these are full-depth reclamations, where we have a reclaimer come in and pulverize the road, the work will be slower,” he added. “We have to reclaim and then come in and remove some material so the road isn’t sitting – basically a road on top of a road. If we have to put four inches in, we have to take four inches out to make everyone’s driveways and the street line up again. Then there will be structure raising and topcoat.”
Main Street is also undergoing repaving work, though Raskevitz said it’s being done by the Mass Department of Transportation under the Municipal Pavement Program. Repaving of Main Street from the South Main Street Bridge to Athol High School will begin after the work on neighborhood streets is underway.
“That’s still on schedule,” said Raskevitz of the Main Street project, “tentatively for middle to late summer. The treatment for that will be milling and paving. So there won’t be any full-depth reclamation. It will be less of a disruption for the motoring public. They’ll break it into sections. They’ll do a small piece, then move on and mill another small section and keep moving it down. That way, the whole stretch won’t be shut down. It’ll be done piecemeal.”
Raskevitz said disruption from the Main Street job will in “the downtown piece itself – Main Street from Starrett’s to the Millers River Environmental Center. That’s the most congested.”
While this project, estimated to cost just over $1.5 million, includes no subsurface infrastructure work, “They want to increase pedestrian safety in front of the fire station. They’re looking at adding some pedestrian crossing lights….that goes in conjunction with our rapid flash beacons that we purchased through another state grants. We’re going to be adding eight more sets of flashing pedestrian lights, like we have downtown, along the entire length of Main Street.”