At the weekly meeting of the town center sewer construction team this Wednesday, building committee chair Chris Ashley and Department of Public Works director Rich Nota reported they had both received complaints about slowed traffic during peak school drop-off and pick-up hours in the morning and afternoon. But the cure, others said, could be worse than the disease.
As crews from Ricciardi Brothers, the town’s contractor, have moved onto Massachusetts Avenue and Ayer Road to lay water and sewer mains, police monitors have found it necessary to reduce traffic on parts of Harvard’s main thoroughfare to a single lane, causing delays during periods of high volume.
Some parents have to make multiple trips to town, said Ashley, first to the elementary school and then to Bromfield and elsewhere. A delay of several minutes in each direction adds up, he said.
Rich Nota said the town may have to consider opening a detour for one of the lanes on Ayer Road. But Harvard Police Chief Edward Denmark said the available routes could take longer.
“The longest I have ever had to wait is two minutes,” he said.
School buses always get priority, added a Wesson and Sampson project manager. But Denmark agreed to map out some possible detours, time them, and then report his finding next week.
At the same meeting, Ricciardi Brothers also reported it had dug nine or 10 “test pits” on Elm Street and on Ayer Road all the way to the Barn School and had decided that blasting to clear away ledge on either will not be necessary. Crews will continue to use a hydraulic hammer to break up the rock they encounter on both streets, Jim Ricciardi told attendees.
During the next two weeks, crews plan to finish laying the new water main on Ayer Road to its terminus at Depot Road, and then to pressure test it. Another crew will continue connecting homes and businesses to the completed sewer main on Massachusetts Avenue.
