Busy summer for road work

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BEACON FALLS — With major road work under way in town, the Board of Selectmen Monday night approved an additional project.

The board voted to spend $120,000 to mill about 700 feet of Beacon Street and install storm drains on the road. The cost includes $10,000 for engineering costs and $10,000 for contingency.

First Selectman Christopher Bielik said the money for the project will come out of the $500,000 voters approved last year for road repairs.

The next step is to send the work out to bid, Bielik said.

Repairs to Beacon Street is just one of several projects, which are moving at varying paces, the town is working on.

Last summer, voters approved bonding up to $2.1 million for work on Noe Place, Burton Road and Highland Avenue.

The work on all three roads is expected to come in about $200,000 less than expected, Town Engineer James Galligan told the board.

The reconstruction of Noe Place is set to wrap up by the end of this week, Galligan said.

The road needed to be completed reclaimed, which meant the pavement was removed and replaced. In addition, drainage needed to be added and the median was removed.

The entire project is expected to cost $240,000.

Paving work on Burton Road is set to begin next week, Galligan said.

Highway Rehabilitation Corporation out of Brewster, N.Y. is expected to begin the heat-in-place asphalt reclamation on Monday, Galligan said. It’s expected to take up to seven working days to complete the entire 1.4 miles of road.

Once that work has been completed, a bituminous concrete overlay will be put on the road, Galligan said.

“Doing a heat-in-place process takes a roughed up surface and turns it into a sound base course. Then we are going to come back and do 1.5 inch overlay,” Galligan said. “So you are going to get a brand new overlay as a finished product from end to end.”

The work on the overlay is expected to begin the second week of July and finish by the third week of July.

Galligan said the drainage work has already been completed along Burton Road and the storm drains have been raised above the current pavement. Once the overlay is put in place the drains will be lower than the road and allow for adequate drainage, he said.

The entire project is expected to cost $1.1 million.

The reconstruction of Highland Avenue will not start until after Aquarian Water Company has finished its work on the road.

The water company has finished placing a new water line from Burton Road to Division Street and will soon begin hooking up houses and Laurel Ledge Elementary School to the new line, Galligan said.

The reconstruction work can begin once everything is connected to the new line, he said.

The reconstruction work, which was originally scheduled to begin this month, is expected to begin shortly after the 4th of July holiday and be completed within four to six weeks, Galligan said.

The reconstruction of Highland Avenue, which includes repaving, new sidewalks, moving the telephone poles, and widening the road, is expected to cost $550,000. The town received a $200,000 Small Town Economic Assistance Program grant to pay for part of the work.