State Officials Bring Residents into the Loop on Willow St. Bridge Project

The proposed project schedule for the South Street/Willow Street Bridge was just the tip of the ice burg of concerns discussed Wednesday evening at the neighborhood meeting.

The Needham Department of Public Works and Town Engineer Tony Del Gaizo hosted the meeting, which was set up to address residents' unease over the bridge's construction and start date.

Craig Sheehan, from the Mass Department of Transportation Right of Way Commission, worked to alleviate worry that the project was starting ahead of its 2011 schedule.

"You might see people out there before hand doing some survey work, putting out some markers," Sheehan said, "but that won't be full fledged construction. We're getting there and you're going to get a nice new $4 million bridge provided by the state."

The nine residents in attendance came with clear-cut questions, wanting to know specifics about when the construction is going to start and how their lives are going to be disrupted.

The construction, which will replace the current bridge structure and wingwalls, will take approximately a year and a half, said Project Manager Matt Hopkinson.  At the moment, completion is scheduled for early-to-mid October 2012, with actual construction starting spring 2011.

 "Nothing is going to happen in the fall," he said. "In the winter they're going to start ordering parts and pieces and nothing is going to be delivered until the spring."

The disruption of everyday life, however, was harder to pin down.  Staging areas, private and public land used by the contractors to stockpile their equipment, were a unanimous concern levied by the group. However, those are not state decisions. Contractors will have to discuss their options with residents and gain permission for the use of land.

"When the contractor comes in…they have to negotiate," Hopkinson said. "If you want them to park in your yard and pay rent and do the work and restore it when they're done, you might get to."

Those kinds of deals are still months away since, according to the schedule, and the project won't be awarded to a contractor until October.

In the meantime, decisions like detour routes, a sensitive subject for these residents who live closest to the bridge, are still to be mapped out.  Plans that were discussed during the public hearing a year ago included Fisher Street as an alternative route for the closed bridge. Neighbors like Sally Smith and Jennifer Emmett came prepared to fight a route that would divert traffic, cumbersome construction trucks included, down their narrow residential street.

"My house literally shakes when a truck drives by," Smith said.

Emmett added,  "It would be so backed up. Having two cars beside each other is impossible."

But Hopkinson, who remained in the hot seat answering question after question, said he would work something out.

"Our detour route won't send people down Fisher Street," he said. "Most of the traffic is thru traffic."

Hopkinson further eased the public's traffic concerns by inviting them to a pre-construction meeting that will likely happen in December.

"Once we get the contractor on board we have a pre-construction meeting," Hopkinson said. "If there are no issues we just show up with whoever is interested; if the public wants to be involved then the public can be involved."

He said residents would be alerted by mail since their addresses were on the sign-in sheet.

Though some questions linger, residents related feeling the meeting was a success and were happy to be kept in the loop.

"Its construction, we know it's going to be an inconvenience," Emmett said. "It's just that we wanted to be voiced on it."

Said Smith, "I think this is great. I think we need to just push for the traffic flow going in the right direction and that it will be fine."

If residents have concerns they wish to address to the department of transportation they can e-mail feedback@state.ma.us.