BY ANDREAS YILMA
REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN
BEACON FALLS — After more than two years of closure, Burton Road, a major town artery, is expected to reopen later this year.
A portion of Burton Road in Beacon Falls, which has been closed for more than two years, is seen April 13.
On Dec. 24, 2020, the twn closed the section of Burton Road from Wolfe Avenue to North Main Street due to structural issues and fears the road could fail.
The closed section of the road, which has a sidewalk on one side and a stone wall on the other, goes over a brook that runs behind Beacon Mill Village apartments. The road previously shifted due to erosion of its foundation from the brook.
The state Department of Transportation has committed to giving the town $2.9 million to fix the road through the Local Transportation Capital Improvement Program. The funds are administered by the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments. The Board of Selectmen last year approved awarding the LOTCIP project to Dayton Construction of Watertown.
First Selectman Gerard Smith said the Burton Road project is coming along.
Eversource workers moved the vast majority of their telephone poles. Workers from Frontier Communications went to the area to move the company’s wires but said they couldn’t because Eversource didn’t move all of their wires.
“I can’t understand how Eversource can move their wires but Frontier can’t move them until Eversource moves them all because they want to do all their moves once,” Smith said. “They don’t want to come out twice.”
This won’t hinder Dayton Construction from coming back to work as they were out on the week of April 12, said Smith.
Smith said the next step is expected where workers will take out the wall that runs along the two homes on the corner of Wolfe Avenue and Maple Avenue. Workers will put in a wall that will mirror the wall that is down below on Burton Road.
“Then once they do that, they’re going to start ripping out the road, grading, sidewalks because you have your structural concrete guys that come out and do the walls, then the flat concrete guys because all the sidewalks are going to be concrete,” Smith said.
“So the sidewalks will get done from Main Street all the way up. Then they’ll rip the road out, grade the road. Then it’ll move right along pretty quickly,” he said.
The official answer from Dayton Construction on when the road reconstruction will be finished is October, when the contract is up.Town officials expect it to be done sooner, Smith said.
“It (road) will be done before the end of 2023,” Smith said.
Krenesky said the mild winter helped workers move more quickly.
“Because they were able to work all winter, they’re totally ahead of everything,” Krenesky said.
