Road Work Begins Wednesday. Where? When? Read on.

By Ellyn Santiago

Originally planned to begin Monday, the first phase of the voter approved $3.5 million road paving project gets under way Wednesday in Mystic and will, over the next several weeks, make its way to Stonington and then on to Pawcatuck, Stonington Public Works Director Joe Bragaw told Patch Monday.

Heavy rains this weekend forced the two-day delay, he said.  

Bragaw said public works crews have been preparing roadways for the work over the past several weeks.

In a press release Bragaw said crews have been “fixing catch basin tops and replacing sidewalk, driveway aprons and/or curbing on the roads that we are looking to pave so we don’t have to dig into the roads at a future date.”

“We want people to be aware and just work with us while we get the work done,” he said.

And that includes no parking on the following streets during the days when milling and paving are taking place: Harry Austin Drive, Mystic; Masons Island Road, Mystic; Elm Street, Stonington; Chase Street, Pawcatuck; Lester Avenue, Pawcatuck; Washington Street, Pawcatuck and Stillman Avenue, Pawcatuck.

The work will begin Wednesday morning and continue street by street heading toward Pawcatuck each day for the next couple of weeks.  

Bragaw said he hopes residents will “work with us on the days we’re going through; we don’t want to be towing vehicles.”  So, no parking on the streets being milled and paved from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m.

What exactly are they doing?

Bragaw said the project consists of milling work first, which he said will “take a few days” and then the paving work will follow. Street by street, road by road until they are done.

Simultaneously, Bragaw said, “cold in place recycle pavement treatment” is planned for Lantern Hill Road from the North Stonington Road to the Wolf Neck Road intersections beginning next Monday May 20. He said crews will also be working on Taugwonk Road (from the I-95 off-ramp to where the road narrows at 135 Taugwonk). He said the plan is to close Lantern Hill Road to through traffic on the days of the operation.

“Since this operation is a little wider than the typical paving operation, there may be delays on portions of Lantern Hill Road that are narrow,” he said.

“After the cold in place recycle treatment is done, we need to wait approximately two weeks for the new pavement to strengthen.”

Bragaw added that, “After the final course of pavement has been installed … we will be going back to address any driveway aprons as necessary and then putting back the double yellow centerlines if they were already on the road before.”

Residents with questions about the road work should call DPW at 860-535-5055.

Wednesday we'll have a story on plans for road work slated for the fall.