What’s the Story with …the Roadwork on Rt. 1 Near Spencer Plains Road
Orange cones have lined Route One near Chalker Beach Road since October 2014. It’s safe to say no one is happy that the project is continuing past its deadline, but there’s also no one reason the work remains unfinished nearly a year after it began.
The latest update is that delays due to improper parts and insufficient expertise should be resolved just in time for a second and third project that promise to disrupt area traffic over the next two years.
The project—widening of this stretch of Route One, the addition of traffic lights at Center and Chalker Beach roads, creating a new left turn lane for Chalker Beach Road, and other offsite infrastructure upgrades—were conditions imposed on the Max’s Place’s developer to secure a State Traffic Commission permit needed because the development is considered a major traffic generator under state rules.
A key element of the upgrade plan is to widen the Route One roadway to add shoulders. Last fall, this meant drilling and blasting work on the northern edge of Route One to remove an abutting rock ledge wall near Bushnell Farm.
In addition, the existing water main that runs under Route One’s southern edge had to be replaced with a new bigger main. This task required installing a pipe sleeve for the new, larger main inside a road culvert. What could have been an easy task was made complicated when two consecutive sleeve connection parts made by an overseas manufacturer failed to fit the pipes.
The first part arrived in early July. The replacement part arrived in late July—and it still did not fit.
That’s when the parts manufacturer visited the site to see if the pipe sections that had to be connected were made to tolerance specifications. They were. A new supplier, this time a local vendor, was found that could make the connection part. When this third part arrived on July 29, it finally was one that fit.
Following the earlier delays, the project manager finally had the correct part, but no contractor available immediately to install it.
Attorney David Royston, the developer’s agent, told the Zoning Commission earlier this month, “they need a tapping contractor to make the connection and then the existing pipe will be taken out of service. The tapping contractor is scheduled to come out on Aug. 4. They will then backfill, and they can begin to cover over the existing culvert to create the bypass lane. The best estimate that was given for completion is Aug. 31.”
If the schedule holds, the new larger water main and required Route One infrastructure upgrades to road and drainage from Spencer Plains Road to Center Road could finally be done by September.
The Other Shoe(s)
Unfortunately, other Connecticut Department of Transportation (DOT) plans will disrupt this section both this fall and again in two years.
The fall 2015 project is the DOT plan to mill and re-pave the section of Route One from Chalker Beach Road to the center of Old Saybrook. In 2017, DOT contractors will return to replace the bridge culvert on Route One at Center Road, disrupting the newly paved surface that will be installed this fall. Though town officials urged DOT to reconsider the timing of the culvert replacement to see if it could be done now, the appeal was unsuccessful.