Street Construction FYI

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

I just received a robocall from the City informing me that the street construction slated for Tuesday had to be moved up and will happen tomorrow, so move the cars, etc. The thing is, we were not notified that any construction was pending at all and, until a half hour ago when a DPW truck came through to put some up, there wasn't a single sign concerning *any* construction, so nobody knew we even had to move the cars by Tuesday AM, let alone in the next 11 hours.

I called 311 to let them know that no signs had been put up and also to ask where I could find the info (including the list of streets) on the web site (because I couldn't find it) so that I could forward it to y'all and was told that it's not there. (I did find a list of streets slated for reconstruction in 2009, but ours isn't actually on it.)

[Updated] Thanks to Ron for getting them all down, this is now the complete list of affected streets as per the message, only a couple of which are in the Davis Square area, but I'm including them all for your info:

Ash Ave
Austin St
Bowdoin St
Farragut Ave
Fremont Ave
Lowell Terrace
Maine Ave
Maine Terrace
Westminster St

But that list is incomplete, so when you have a moment, you may want to look out the window and see if there are any new signs on your street. According to the message, there will be neither parking nor access tomorrow, so if your street is affected and you need to use your car, make sure it's parked somewhere else and not trapped in your driveway.

Comments

[masswich.livejournal.com]

Its a bit of a pain to have roadwork done but it is nice to have new sidewalks. OTOH, the sidewalks there are putting in around Davis this season are really sloppy. The ramps don't slope down much (or in some cases at all) so they just pile asphalt in the street itself to complete the ramp. The tactile (usually red and bumpy) strips they use to indicate a ramp are sometimes not in the right place or at the right angle, and the ramps aren't across the street from each other.

The City is really lucky if no one from the disabled community has complained yet- these ramps clearly don't meet code. I'm not even a big user of ramps but I think its a disgrace- it just looks like the City is being taken advantage of by a connected contractor.

[laryu.livejournal.com]

The piles of asphalt might only be temporary as they prepare to repave the entire street. That's what they did on both ends of Herbert (at Day and at Chester): a) put in sidwalk tactile ramps, b) pile asphalt on the street leading to the ramps, c) tear up street, d) tear up sidewalk, e) pour sidewalks, f) repave street with grades to ramps. Only there was a week or so between each step.

[masswich.livejournal.com]

That may be true but only if they are planning to repave several streets right next to each other along Curtis in the same season. And it doesn't explain the locations of the ramps or the improperly installed tactile ramps...

Don't get me wrong- I am glad the city is spending money on this, and I think they generally do a good job on public works. That's why this is so strange...

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

they've put a number of those "ramps" which don't meet ADA guidelines (or so it is claimed over on the google groups somerville parking problems) in the middle of streets, and started ticketing for blocking a ramp/crosswalk - even if there's no crosswalk painted, never has been.