Watertown Plans $6 Million in Road Work for Summer of 2012

Nearly $6 million of road and sidewalk projects are planned for the summer of 2012, including a major renovation of Waverley Avenue and Carroll Street.

The Public Works Committee voted to recommend a package of road projects Tuesday night, which includes 10 streets. The funds for the work will come from both borrowed money ($2.5 million of bonds) and from the town’s water and sewer funds.

, which will be completely ripped up and reinstalled, said Public Works Superintendent Gerald Mee.  The $2.1 million project includes repaving, along with raised crosswalks and intersections in an effort to slow traffic on the road.

Most of the work will be completed this summer, but the final touches will not be done until 2013, Mee said. Eventually, the intersection of Waverley Avenue and Main Street will be redesigned and repaved, but not this year, Mee said.

Originally Taylor Street – a small street connecting Mt. Auburn Street to Arsenal Street ­– was to be included in the plan, but Mee said the area might be redeveloped.

A Mix of Roads

The town developed a list of roads and rated them in terms of what shape they are in. Residents have approached Town Councilor Cecilia Lenk said asked why isn’t their street on the list while others with higher ratings made the list.

Mee said he tried to do a mix of work.

“If we did a bunch of small streets (in the worst shape) we would not be able to do the highly travelled streets,” Mee said. “Union and Aldrich (streets) are small, but have very high traffic. We are also doing Hawthorne Street, a dead end street but has been forgotten for many years.”

Town Councilor Vincent Piccirilli said the road is part of the Community Path plan to create a bicycle/pedestrian route through town.

Coming up with a plan to incorporate Taylor Street and Baptist Walk – which sits on the opposite side of Mt. Auburn Street – into the path should be done before the road is redeveloped, Lenk said.

Town Councilor Angeline Kounelis, who represents East Watertown, noted that there are no streets in the East End on the plan.

Mee said he is delaying the work on Taylor Street and has added repaving of Arlington Street from Clarendon Street to Arsenal Street.

The town has additional money set aside to fill in cracks and to do large patches – as long as 300 feet – on other streets in town. He does not have a list yet, but told the committee he would tell the Town Council when he found out.

Roads that will be repaved during the summer of 2012:

• Boyd Street from Galen Street to the town line
• Union Street from Galen Street to Morse Street
• Aldrich Road from Watertown Street to Galen Street
• Hawthorne Street from Pearl Street to the dead end
• Lovell Road from Locke Street to the town line
• Middlesex Road the entire road
• Standish Road from Locke Street to the town line
• Arlington Street from Arsenal Street to Clarendon Street
• Carroll Street from Orchard Street to the town line
• Waverley Avenue from Main Street to Fitchburg Street