Day 79 (Tues) - Day 81 (Thur)

So, as I am out east, work progresses; this is info from a couple days ago so work has advanced from that update....but,this is what I have to offer:

Roxbury street is built out. Work on sidewalk on Roxbury is continuing with removal and prep for new concrete.

Woodland circle concrete is in. Lakewood Blvd concrete and aprons are in.

Lower Bluff....right now, we are tentative for Frank Brothers Asphalt to come into the Village to put down the binder coat of asphalt the week of July 5th. After binder asphalt, the contractor will finish the landscaping restoration and then, the final layer of asphalt will be completed.

New Castle: Water Main is in. Services are connected in the 200 block. If testing is not already received for the balance of New Castle, it should be completed soon. Once completed, the balance of services will be switched over.

Charing Cross: Water Main was being worked on earlier in the week and if it is not completed, should be done soon. Then, main testing and transer of services to the new main.

Day 75 (Fri) - Day78 (Mon)

Last Friday, we made progress with water main installation on New Castle. This particular water main keeps crossing the sanitary main so it is slow and tedious work. There is not alot more distance to cover on New Castle with water main, so once that is completed, they will move over to Charing Cross.

We are still needing to get Roxbury Road rebuilt. The extreme wet conditions and then other tasks that came up, prevented this from getting completed last week. Hopefully, they get that tackled today.

Anticipate ongoing preparation and pouring of driveway aprons, sidewalks, and additional road prep for this week. You will also see rough grading of restoration areas getting started in the lower bluff this week!!

I will be gone for this week and early of next week. Tom will be sending me updates if there is newsworthy information to get posted.

Day 73 (Wed) & Day 74 (Thur)

On Wednesday, there was some work done on sanitary sewers on Woodland Circle. However, the dump pit where the contractor takes much of their 'spoils', was closed due to all the rain we have gotten recently.

In fact, that pit was also closed for much of today (Thursday), so the rebuilding of Roxbury Road was delayed until that pit could be opened later in the day today.

Water Main work continued on New Castle. Another water main break occured up there today so that slowed their progress a bit. This is the 2d break the contractor has experienced on this section of road.

The concrete contractor is expected in the Village tomorrow and will be pouring more driveway aprons, sidewalks, and curbs.

We learned yesterday that the sub-contractor doing the asphalt paving will NOT be willing to do any private driveway work. This means that if you have an asphalt driveway, you will need to get your own asphalt contractor to do your driveway IF you wanted the entire driveway completed. The contractor WILL do that portion of your driveway that we remove---usually back to a saw cut on the existing driveway. We are working with another local contractor to allow residents to get the best price possible should they want to replace their entire driveway. We will be meeting with that contractor tomorrow and we will come up with more information and let you know about that tomorrow.

Day 68-Day72; Some ?'s Answered

Ok, need a quick summary? Here ya go:

Friday Day 68: Some Rain....water main installation on New Castle; they only worked until noon. They did stub out for the main on Charing Cross.

Saturday/Sunday Day 69-70: Contractor Off and gone home

Monday Day 71: Rainy, but a bit of work was completed. The 3 residential water services on Roxbury got completed. Concrete contractor had a few staff in Village doing some miscellaneous work.

Tuesday Day 72: Rain again both today but overnight we had rain as well. Soils are too difficult to work in. Some maintenance work will be performed to assure storm water and erosion control are being taken care of.

I had a resident email me with a couple questions which they thought might be helpful to blog about; and I agree. I will try to be brief:

Question:
If we start parking on a side street during construction, do we need to do anything special so we can leave the cars on the street overnight? Do we need to display anything in the window?

Answer:
No, you really dont. During the period of road and infrastructure, we are not issuing parking tickets to those cars that are forced onto the street to park. In some cases, you may not be able to get to your driveway, or, maybe you have chosen to park outside the active construction zone. This exception does not exist in locations where there is not construction.

Question:
I know the construction workers are probably watching out for kids as best they can, but what do you recommend I tell my kids so they cross through the construction zone safely (either on foot or on their bikes)? Should they try to make eye contact with the equipment operator? Find someone to help them through? Just make a run for it? Any advice you (or the contractors) can provide would be very helpful.

Answer:
First, avoid just making a run for it--darting into traffic or around a work zone is not safe. Never assume that the equipment operators can see you; in fact, assume the opposite. Trying to make eye contact is good and we have found these operators are keenly aware of their surroundings, but never assume things are safe. The operators will give you way.
Remember that the active work zone is limited to a fairly small area but you can still have equipment moving about. Encourage your child to take the most direct route to get out of the active construction zone. Let say you live on McBride, and they are working on McBride or New Castle, you may want to have your kids go down to LeRoy and the then to Del Mar, Lakewood and down to the Beach. Or, take Magdeline to Butternut and over to Farwell. There should be several routing options available, especially since there is only one pipe crew for the time being.
If you have taught your children good pedestrian habits, and, assuming they practice them, they should be fine. Reinforce to them that they should avoid getting in the way. It is ok to watch, but do so from a safe distance.

For Wednesday, the Road Crew will be reconstructing Roxbury, starting near the intersection with Lakewood. Because of several factors influencing that crew, they may be starting a bit earlier in the morning. There are a few miscellaneous tasks for the pipe crew to work on in the lower bluff, but ideally they will then resume water main installation on New Castle.

Day 67

Rain Rain come again on Friday!! Or so it appears. We shall see if we can get any work completed tomorrow or if we get rained out again.

Today, Woodland Circle road base was completed. That will sure make any rain this weekend easier to take!! It does not mean that it will be perfect though, so still drive cautiously.

The Road Crew then went down to get the intersection of Kensington and Roxbury rebuilt. However, they cant rebuild Roxbury until residential services are completed next week. The test sample for the Roxbury main was sent in and should be back tomorrow. Services will be completed on Monday. You should avoid driving on Roxbury between Lakewood and Kensington. A Cadillac Escalade found that out the hard way. Yup, buried up to the floor boards.

A good amount of sidewalk and some driveway aprons got poured on Kensington today.

Water main crews worked installing main westbound on New Castle today. There was a stretch of Sanitary Sewer that they had to dig under so that slowed progress but they were heading toward Charing Cross at lunch time today.

Day 66

Good Day today!!! Beautiful weather; good work completed!!

Woodland Circle:
The road reconstruction really made good progress on Woodland Circle today. With still a few hours left in their work day, they were getting close to completing that road base on the rest of Woodland.

Roxbury:
The new water main was done being cleaned/"cooked", so today they needed to blow out the line. No, there is not a new geyser on Roxbury at Lakewood; however, without having a fire hydrant to clean out the new line, they install a valve which is used to clean out that line. Once the line is run freely open for a long period of time, then the water samples can be taken and submitted. Most likely, we will not get those sample results back until late Friday or even Monday. This means that residential services will not be started until those results are completed.

Assuming that Woodland Circle road base is/was completed, they will be moving over to the Roxbury/Kensington intersection next to rebuild. After residential services are completed on Roxbury, they will move to rebuilding the road.

Also in the lower bluff, street clean up and preparation
continued for the concrete contractor to come and begin to set up frames for aprons and sidewalks. Look for them to be here possibly tomorrow.

Upper Bluff, New Castle at Lakewood Blvd;
As I ran into an upper bluff resident late afternoon today, we had a discussion which in short, revolved around the fact that we need additional signs just past the "Road Closed" signs that says..."Yes, we meant it" and/or, "Yes, this includes you too!!"

There was a hole in the road today at Lakewood and New Castle that we could have fit a bus inside. There was no way any vehicle was getting through that intersection; but, many people drove up to the intersection only to find that in fact, it was closed. That will happen; we simply don't have sign boards that can cover all possible messages. We just beg for your patience and do the best you can to find your way on alternate routes to avoid these locations.

The water main tie-in was started at Lakewood/New Castle and they will continue westbound on New Castle from there. Remember they can lay several hundred feet of water main per day if the conditions are good, so their work zone will move swiftly down New Castle.

Day 65

Well, once again with the rain, there was very little accomplished in terms of construction. Crew members were around the sites doing some general maintenance, cleaning up piles of concrete, removing unused pipe, etc.

Tomorrow is supposed to be better weather so if we get some drying, we will get the crews back at it.

Monday, DAY 64

Good work completed today.
WOODLAND CIRCLE: Several storm inlets were installed today. Also, road reconstruction made it about halfway down the interior block. They hope to finish that road reconstruction tomorrow---though rain is also expected so be cautious about that.
ROXBURY ROAD: Water main was just about completed when I left that area at mid-afternoon. I would think that it got completed today. That means that the new main will begin getting tested for pressure, filled, and then water sampled very soon. Once all tests are completed, the three residential services will be done.
NEW CASTLE/CHARING CROSS: Based on weather, these two roads should start as a crew is made available. The Village has all permits necessary to begin work in the upper bluff.
Kensington sidewalk and driveway work was also a focal point today. Concrete was scheduled for tomorrow but based on weather, we may not see them.

Hope for clear weather.....

Day 60 (Thu) & Day 61 (Fri)

Today (Friday 6/4) we sit with another rain day with No construction work being conducted in the Village.

Here is an update with current status of construction on various roads/areas:

The storm system work at the Beach has been completed and the new outfall has been installed. To help clean up that area a bit, we took down the orange fence and cut down the long grass.

Woodland Circle: There is a very little amount of storm sewer work left to be completed. What remains is the installation of two storm inlets on the northern leg. Woodland has had both of the blocks straight off of Kensington already reconstructed. There will be additional road construction to be completed before asphalt, but this indicates, for the most part, the completion of pipe work!! The part of Woodland Circle that parallels Kensington still needs to be rebuilt; which means with this rain, it is still pretty soft. Early today, Village staff went out to shore up some soft areas giving residents access to their driveways. The balance of that road reconstruction will take place early next week. But, all residential services are now put onto the new main.

The majority of all old water main in the lower bluff project zones, has now been shut down, pipes cut and capped. The exception is Roxbury.

Roxbury: The Sanitary sewer system work has been completed. The pipe crew began installation of water mains. We anticipate, with good weather, that the water main will be completed early next week. While that water main is filled and tested, the pipe crew will move to the upper bluff until the three residential services are ready to be completed on Roxbury. This should be completed by the end of next week.

With the completion of Roxbury pipe work by the end of next week, the focus will then be toward road pavement. To get to that end, we need additional prep work to be completed on driveways and sidewalk areas.

The concrete contractor is expected back in the Village on Tuesday of next week. If you are on Kensington south of Oxford or if you are on Woodland with a concrete approach/apron, you should be seeing that work completed next week.

UPPER BLUFF: We had anticipated the crews to get to the upper bluff this week, but that really did not happen for any substantial pipe work. We do anticipate that happening next week however. The current plan is to focus work on New Castle and Charring Cross first.

Day 59

On Wednesday, a lack of rain overnight allowed us to get some good work done today. That is of course until late this afternoon/early evening when we got the heavy stuff!!

Two crews on Woodland were anticipated to get the residential services completed by early afternoon.

Another pipe crew started work on Roxbury today with some major sanitary replacement work which took place at the Roxbury/Kensington intersection. After additional storm work, this crew will begin on water main on Roxbury.

The road crew was doing additional final preparation on the 400 block of Kensington today. That is really a good sign that we are soon heading for pavement. Of course the driveways still need to be prepped on Woodland and in the lower 200 block of Kensington.

We have a construction meeting tomorrow morning at which I hope to have more schedule details to share.

Days 52-58

Good Evening,

As I wrote on Tuesday of last week, I had the good fortune of chaperoning my son's 6th grade, 3 day field trip at the end of last week. What a great trip to have been a part of!! Though away, I was still connected via contemporary methods of communication.....ie. The BlackBerry!!

I got an email in the early afternoon of last Thursday that the Village had received from the DNR, our Chapter 30 permit for the Storm Water work at the Beach. I immediately notified Tom back in the Village; unfortunately, the Contractor was unable to complete that work as they were already scheduled to be gone on Friday for a long holiday weekend.

That means that early today (Monday), work was started and by mid afternoon, the balance of the storm work was completed at the Beach outfall!!!

Elsewhere in the Village today, there were two pipe crews working on residential water services on Woodland Circle (this means the water tested clean and homes are being switched over to the new water main).

We learned today again that not every residential water service has minimal intrusion. Another home today had a HUGE hole in their front yard. A similar problem came up on a home on Kensington Drive. In those particular circumstances, the Village, via the Contractor, is attempting to save a substantial tree. This requires additional excavation around a healthy tree speciman to save the root structure, and the life of that tree. The argument is one of grass vs. tree. I think this is an easy decision; however, people dont always agree.

There was some street construction prep work completed around the entire lower bluff today. This is a good sign as we prepare or asphalt in the next couple weeks.

UPPER BLUFF
Though we had positioned ourself to move a pipe crew to the upper bluff starting this week. There is a significant amount of work left to complete in the lower bluff, with another 6-8 water services on Woodland, a bit more of storm work on that same street AND, one block of Roxbury needs to be completed yet with water and, some sanitary sewer work. We also may be looking at a few problems with weather for this week so we are trying to factor those variables into our planning. We also may be looking at a reduced construction presence as a crew or two may have to pull out of Village. More details must be reviewed yet this week.

Please stay tuned as we learn more information as the week goes along. Regards.