Closures along Central Street on Tuesday and Wednesday, June 3rd and 4th

[tomchampion.livejournal.com]

Here's the Connect CTY message going out on Sunday evening at 5:45 p.m.:

Hello, this is Tom Champion for the City of Somerville with information about temporary roadway closures along Central Street.

On Tuesday, June 3rd, in order to complete repaving operations, Central Street from Broadway to Medford Street will be closed from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Central Street from Medford Street to Highland Avenue will be closed from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Please note that the intersection between Central and Medford will be closed to all traffic from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. with accompanying detours and delays along Medford Street.

On Wednesday, June 4th, Central Street from Highland Avenue to Summer Street will be closed from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Central from Summer Street to Somerville Avenue will be closed from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

On Wednesday, the intersection between Central and Highland will be closed from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. with accompanying detours and delays along Highland Avenue.

We appreciate your patience as we repave this vital cross-town roadway. For additional information please call 311 during normal business hours. Thank you.

[This will be a vexing project for many Somerville drivers, but the work is necessary. Doing it in the dead of night would be disruptive to residential neighborhoods -- not to mention wicked expensive. So please bear with us, and plan ahead.]

Comments

[ron_newman]

Will the 80, 85, 88, and 90 buses still be able to get through when the intersections are otherwise closed to traffic?

[tomchampion.livejournal.com]

Because these are temporary, one-day closures of single intersections, the buses will be detoured just like the rest of the traffic.

If we were looking at a closure of a bus route along much of its length, bus service on the affected road might be might closed entirely -- as it was for routes 88 and 90 during last Sunday's Memorial Day parade.

If the closure were a multi-day event, we might work with the T to set up temporary bus stops to correspond to the detours. (we've done that on Somerville Avenue.)

Neither situation applies here, so the buses will keep on running, but they'll be detoured -- and stops at those intersections will be temporarily closed.

[ron_newman]

Thanks. I need to ride over there tonight to see what effect this has on the bike ride I'm leading tomorrow (or Sunday if tomorrow is rainy). I don't want to lead 50 or 100 bikers onto an unpaved road if I can avoid it.

[daft.livejournal.com]

tch. no sense of adventure.

[somer-villains.livejournal.com]

the road is just skimmed, so it's a little rough... nothing that any road bike can't handle.

[keshwyn]

The bikes can probably handle it - it's the bikers that may have problems.

I've been going over it all week, and I will admit that the grooves make me nervous - I've had my bike jump sideways into traffic or unexpectedly toward the curb when I got caught in a particularly pernicious groove several times, and I commute by bike regularly.

Weekend bikers may have more problems.

[keshwyn]

Thanks for the heads up, much appreciated.

What effect, if any, is this going to have on pedestrian foot traffic?

[tomchampion.livejournal.com]

On the cross streets, the effect should be minimal, with police officers on duty to shepherd pedestrians across the intersections. You might want to stay off the sidewalks of Central though -- not impassable, but noisy and smelly along the sections where the hot-topping is actually taking place.