New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Monroe road project delays upset drivers, first selectman
MONROE — The relocation of utilities has caused more than a year of delays in completing the reconstruction of a heavily traveled street in Monroe, according to construction officials.
Some residents have expressed frustration that work on the roughly $8 million Pepper Street project has caused traffic jams, and the town's first selectman recently demanded that contractors complete the project by the end of the year. In turn, contractors said they plan to finish by Nov. 15.First Selectman Ken Kellogg said drivers are not able to quickly drive through the area.
“It is a construction zone without a doubt. And as a result, it's not a road you would necessarily choose to go through right now because it's all being ripped up,” Kellogg said. “There are routinely areas where we have to have alternating traffic on either side of the road. The police are out there directing traffic. It's one of those things where there could be backups.”
Pepper Street loops around to intersect twice with Monroe's Main Street, or Route 25. Kellogg has stated that the project will help support future economic development of the existing industrial park by supporting commercial traffic coming to and from Route 25.
Work on the project, which is 80 percent federally funded, includes lowering parts of the roadway to improve sight lines, installing an upgraded traffic signal at Main Street and replacing a culvert at the Jockey Hollow Road intersection.
Since the start of the project in June 2020, contractors said they have repeatedly been delayed by work on utility lines, such as gas and water pipes, that are owned by utility companies.
Utility companies didn't start relocating equipment until after construction on the project began two years ago.
When asked why Eversource didn't relocate equipment before construction, spokesperson Mitch Gross said engineers were still adjusting designs the same year construction started.
But Adam Dawidowicz of BL Companies, the engineering consulting firm behind the project, said that the final version of the plan was delivered two years before construction started. If there were changes, they were minor and didn't concern utility layouts, he said.
He and a contractor with the project both said utility companies have spent a total of 18 months relocating lines.
Contractors have worked on other parts of the project while utility companies relocated their equipment, but Dawidowicz said progress from those shifts typically weren't meaningful.
Dawidowicz said that drainage, for example, is typically installed first in similar projects. However, for the Pepper Street reconstruction project, most of the drainage was installed over 18 months, he said.
Contractors “simply could not either get access to the roadway because the utility companies were in the way with equipment, or the utilities themselves, the actual infrastructure, was still in the way of being able to put in the drainage,” Dawidowicz said.
Joseph Grasso Jr., president of The Grasso Companies LLC, said contractors have also experienced months-long wait times for drainage pipes, a problem that he said was due to supply chain issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. A manufacturer set to provide the stand pole for the upgraded traffic light also went out of business.
Last year, construction was also suspended for about four months as Eversource relocated a gas line to a lower depth. During that time, the utility company faced months-long wait times for new pipes and fittings to install for the work.
Along with the reconstruction of about 4,500 linear feet on Pepper Street for safety improvements, the project also involves a multi-use trail improvement from the Northbrook Condos to Grand Road.
Kellogg told contractors to give regular updates on the project's progress. He plans to share those updates with residents.