ATHOL – Resurfacing of Main Street will get underway next Tuesday, according to an announcement from the town of Athol.
The entire project will stretch from the intersection of Main Street and Raymond Place near the Millers River Bridge to Athol High School and will be funded by the state Department of Transportation, which is also overseeing the project.
In November 2024, then-State Transportation Secretary Monica Tibbits-Nutt announced that the Municipal Pavement Program would spend $50 million in 45 communities across the commonwealth over the next two years. The cost of the Athol project is estimated at $1.3 million.
The work will lead to the loss of four on-street parking spaces in downtown Athol. Those spaces are located near crosswalks and are being eliminated to give pedestrians better visibility when crossing the road.
In addition, the Montachusett Regional Transit Authority plans to relocate its bus stops on Freedom Street near Ocean State Job Lot to sites along Main Street. One westbound stop will be located between Kimball-Cooke Insurance and the Masonic Lodge and another will be in front of the former North Quabbin Family Physicians at 201 South Main St. An eastbound stop will be placed near the entrance to Mill Brook Crossing.
“There will be some periodic delays for motorists,” said Public Works Director Paul Raskevitz. “But they’re going to attempt to maintain two-way traffic the entire time because Main Street is pretty wide. There will be a few bottlenecks, like when the machines are going past some of the bump-outs downtown. That might cause some short delays.”
Raskevitz also cautioned that, during milling and paving, “there will be periods of no parking downtown. They’re going to try to keep that to a minimum and keep the restrictions to one side of the street at a time. But it should just be one day for milling and then one day for paving.”
According to Raskevitz, work will begin near the high school and proceed to the Millers River Bridge. It’s expected that the project will be completed by mid-November.
“There will only be temporary line striping put in for this year,” he added, “because the fall temperatures will be cool enough where we won’t be able to do the permanent line striping. That will happen in the spring; that will be inlaid line-striping.
“It’s a partnership with MassDOT, so we’ll be around for a lot of the structure adjustments, just to make sure our infrastructure is good; make sure the sewer manholes don’t get filled in with gravel and things like that,” he added.
Raskevitz said that the crosswalk near the Uptown Fire Station will also be moved.
“That crosswalk will be moving from directly in front of the fire station probably about 15 feet west, and they’re going to be adding detectable warning mats and rapid flash beacons,” he said.