Written by Gary Slep:

To Our Patient Neighbors,

The bridge project is proceeding but is behind schedule by about three weeks due to the utility work over which the contractor has no real control; that coordination and direction apparently comes from Mass DOT.

Anyhow, today (Tuesday) the gas line work has begun in earnest.  A contractor working for National Grid is placing new 4 inch pipe over the temporary steel structure alongside the water main.  Sections are being welded today.  Then the road will have to be cut on both sides of the bridge to allow the utility to place a bypass pipe under the road on each side of the bridge.  The utility will do only half of the road cuts at a time so that traffic can continue to pass over the bridge under the direction of a detail police officer.  There may be short, intermittent periods when traffic will be held up so that equipment can be moved.  Once the new pipe sections are in place, the new and old lines will be purged, and the gas line bypass filled and ready to go.  There may be steel plates put over the trenches cut in the road, or the road cuts may be temporarily filled with asphalt.  This work will allow the general contractor to remove the old bridge and possibly the section of the gas line that now runs under the river.  National Grid and AA Will estimate that the gas line work will be done early next week, probably Tuesday or Wednesday.  For those of you who use gas from this pipeline, no interruption in service is expected.

The other utilities are not expected to be back on the site until National Grid is done with their part.  I am told that NSTAR still has one more utility pole to relocate.  Once that is done, they can move their power lines to the new poles, without power interruption.  When NSTAR completes its work, Verizon and Comcast must move their wires and cables to the new utility poles, as will the fire department for their alarm system.

All the utility work will take an estimated three weeks (plus or minus a week).  After that, AA Will, the general contractor, will close the road and begin the work of removing the steel Bailey Bridge, the concrete arch bridge, and their foundations.  Then we will start to see the new foundations being poured and the start of the construction of the new bridge.

I think it is safe to say that this project should go much better than Boston’s big dig.  We have been lucky so far: no floods and the river is very low for April, which aids the construction project but is bad for the area’s groundwater and drought.