Day 43; Beautiful week ahead

Crews were back at it today working on those areas that we anticipated in my post from last Thursday. Tomorrow, another crew will be in Village working on a few last connections to the water main at Cambridge and Lakewood. Services will then be completed and the balance of the road will be rebuilt. You may notice that Lake Anderson is now gone, replaced with the start of a rebuilt road!!!

Our friends on Woodland Circle are receiving water main installation this week. They will also then move to storm system enhancements. As a reminder, there is no parking on any street directly under construction. All we ask is that you work with the contractor to get your car moved to a reasonable location.

I should have some new details on the upper bluff construction starting date soon. Stand by and watch for that information.....

Day 39; Take a long weekend...

The contractor did a little road maintenance this morning to make sure streets were passable, but with the rain overnight, there is way too much moisture for them to work today. With more anticipated yet today or tonight, the contractor has sent crews home for the weekend.

I heard an interesting story today which is normally told to me the other way around. I hear from many residents how happy they are with the contractors and the care/concern that they are showing. Today however, I heard from one of the contractors how impressed they are working here in the Village of Maple Bluff. This particular employee said how tolerant residents are of such horrific conditions. And, in fact he talked about the friendliness; people waving at them, the kind words and gestures. His point was that they NEVER see this kind of behavior........how does that help????

Well, this is how it all fits together.......this same contractor told me how THEY react to these positive reactions and behaviors and in essence they, (the contractor) become even MORE willing to move, help, get out of the way, etc. They get treated nicely and they do even more to make the hassle more tolerable.

I was told of one resident in the Kensington Drive area who has provided NUMEROUS cases of adult beverages for the crew members---for after work!!!. This same resident has even found himself up and in some of the apparatus while working. That is neat. I would suggest to you that such hospitality really pays dividends with the crew members. If you have opportunity, make the crews feel welcome. It does not have to be an adult beverage; but, cookies or other baked goods would also be warmly received. Remember, these guys are away from home for the entire week so any outreach would be warmly received.

On Monday, anticipate the following work:

• Road construction will continue between mid block of Kensington North of Oxford to the point where they left off near Cambridge. [Our apologies for Lake Anderson on the corner of Kensington/Cambridge].
• Water main will continue on Woodland Circle. The south entrance of Woodland at Kensington will remain blocked off. All entrances into Woodland Circle will need to come from the North.
• Also on Monday Services on Kensington South of Oxford will continue.
• They are treating the newly installed water main on Cambridge and letting it "cook". They hope to get the first test sample taken and submitted today. On Monday, they hope to have that result so that on Tuesday, they can begin Water Services on Cambridge Road.

See ya on Day 43!!!

Days 34-38; Back to Work!!

Ok, lets see where we left off. On Monday of this week (Day 36), we had a couple crews in Village and they were finishing some clean up from a messy weekend. Some road work was completed and the storm line was started on the south side of Woodland Circle.

Yesterday, (Day 37), we got completely rained out. What does a construction crew from out of town do on a rain day?? Well, there were rumors of a bowling day, but I dont think that happened. Lets just assume that they stayed in and read all day!!

Today however, crews are back to work. We are fortunate to catch a break from the rain; though the construction areas are quite sloppy. There are several crews working on the following jobs:

• One crew has started residential services on Kensington South of Oxford.
• The road crew is rebuilding the Kensington/Oxford Intersection and they will continue working north to where they left off near the intersection of Kensington and Cambridge.
• There is another crew that has started working on Water Main on the south side of Woodland Circle. They will be working from south to north.

If you live on Woodland Circle, you should anticipate being directly affected today and the next days that they work. With the recent rain, keep in mind that the roads, even when backfilled, may be very soft. As they near the end of the work day, they will make them as passable as they can.

As another reminder, the plan for next week was to continue StormWater work on the Lakewood/Fisk intersection. This work may impact traffic through this area. Be aware of changing traffic patterns.

We have a construction meeting tomorrow morning so I will have more schedule information after that meeting.

Day 32 & Day 33....

Day 33, Today--Friday 5/7 is quite easy....rain, and no, or very minimal work.

Day 32, Thursday, showed progress in the water main installation on Cambridge Road. They have completed a bit more than half of Cambridge. I can tell you however in that construction, that we are finding some horribly soft base under the roads. This makes road rebuilding more difficult and temporary roads even more difficult to make passable for traffic. If you go by Cambridge Road, you will notice that it is mostly closed down.
This crew will begin water main installation on Woodland Circle after Cambridge Water Main is completed. Work will begin at the south intersection with Kensington and will proceed north.
Other work on Thursday included road reconstruction southbound on Kensington that has reached Oxford. Residential services south of Oxford are now ready to be completed as the new main has passed the water tests. One service was already completed as crews fixed a break in the old water main. Others will continue next week.

Tentative plans to complete work in the Lakewood at Fisk Place intersection is scheduled for the week of May 17th. Please recognize that traffic on Lakewood will be affected. We anticipate one lane through this area and possibly having the need for a flagman. Consider this if you pass this area frequently, as you may want to consider leaving the Village through the outer drive of Farwell. More information will be posted as we get closer.

Day 31;

Wow, 3 pipe crews really can make a mess of Village Streets!! Work continued today in the same areas as earlier this week.

• Storm sewer main continued southboundon Kensington and they were sure to be past the Woodland intersection.
• Sanitary sewer should have been completed today on Cambridge. That same crew was going to go back near the intersection with Kensington and begin the water main installation on Cambridge.
• Additional water services were completed in the zone near Kensington and Oxford that had a clear water test. There was also some miscellaneous sewer work completed near that same intersection.
• Finally, road crews kept rebuilding Kensington southbound in the mid 300 block. They are right on the heels of the storm sewer crew.

A few more days left in the week so stand by for more work coming to you.

Day 30; Lakewood at Beach Info

I think considerable progress was made again today. The weather, when it cooperates, can help make construction go smoothly. Though, too dry of conditions also makes construction dusty. That said, if your home is in the vicinity of the construction areas, you may want to keep windows closed to minimize the dust getting into your home.

Here is a summary of the progress today.

• Storm sewer continued down Kensington in the 300 block and they are nearing the intersection with Cambridge.
• Sanitary sewer work began on the 100 block of Cambridge, starting in the Kensington intersection. There was a new sanitary man hole/structure put in place in the middle of that intersection. Then, about 75' of sanitary line was put in place heading back into Cambridge Rd.
• At the end of the day, that sanitary sewer crew had to replace/repair a water main shut of valve that was leaking in that same intersection. Many homes received phone calls in the Kensington/Woodland Circle area regarding the water shut off. This was unplanned but we did what we could to notice residents. That was good; what was bad was that when the calls were made around 4:15pm, we anticipated that the contractor was ready to have the water shut off. Residents were prepped that water should be turned back on by 5:30pm; unfortunately, the contractor was not ready to have the water shut off until after 6pm.......DRAT!! That frustrates US, so I am sure it is disheartening for homeowners as well. Sorry for that inconvenience.
• Down the street further on Kensington, residential water service connections continued. As of right now, we only have water tested and cleared a bit south of the Oxford intersection with Kensington. Until we get the lab reports back on the water tests for the water main further south, we can not continue service connections. But, we hope to get those back soon.....samples have already been submitted to the lab for testing.

Finally, discussions with the contractor are leading us to believe that next week and the week after, crews may be in the vicinity of Lakewood Blvd/Fisk Place near the Beach making the connections of the Storm Sewer to the outfall at the beach. They also must complete a fairly substantial Sanitary Sewer Re-work in that intersection. I dont know how this will affect traffic just yet; but it may be substantial. Stay tuned for more information.

Day 29

I will be to the point to catch you up on progress since last Thursday.

Crews did the best they could to prep the roads before the weekend. I was in Village on Saturday for the Walk for Courage and found standing water on Kensington, but very passable. Please remember that with no road pavement, storm water does not have any place to run. Thus, rain is not always our friend in dealing with construction zones.

UPDATES:

• Residential service installations are in the 250 or so block of Kensington; this is several houses south of Cambridge and just 2-3 houses north of Oxford.
• Last Friday, water main reached Roxbury on Kensington so they went as far as they could. Those mains were filled with water on Friday and now they are working to get the water tested/passed. This allows the residential service crew to continue making progress all the way to Roxbury.
• Roxbury will have to be the last street to have water main installed, otherwise we would isolate Woodland Circle with no water.
• On TUESDAY (tomorrow), please note that Sanitary Sewer work will begin on CAMBRIDGE. This work will last all of this week. Those of you living on CAMBRIDGE will find "No Parking" signs. Plan on this street as NOT being available for traffic during the construction day.
• Storm sewer is continuing southbound on Kensington. That crew is approaching the intersection with Cambridge and Woodland Circle. As they make more progress southbound, the road crew will again begin to rebuild the roads. If you recall, right now Fisk, the 400 block of Kensington, and 5-6 houses south on Kensington in the 300 block have road rebuilt with rock.

Please stay in touch.