Now viewing articles posted in 2024.
Highway Officials Crack Down on Speeding in East Lyme
October 27th, 2024
Engineers with the Interstate 95 construction project are promising a strong law
enforcement presence over the next two months to enforce the work zone’s 50 mph speed limit as
shifting lanes become increasingly tricky to navigate.Posted in: In the NewsI-95 Reconstruction in East Lyme is about to have Major Traffic Impacts
August 29th, 2024
By Elizabeth Regan, Day Staff Writer
East Lyme ― Project officials behind the four-and-a-half-year, $148 million Interstate 95 reconstruction project are warning travelers to brace for the most significant impacts to Route 161 to date.
Resident Engineer Robert Obey of the Glastonbury-based engineering firm GM2 said crews on Sept. 8 are set to begin construction of a new bridge that by the end of the year will carry highway traffic on the newly aligned northbound lanes alongside a revamped Exit 74 on-ramp.
The new bridge will be constructed south of the existing one, which will be demolished and rebuilt in later phases of the project, which is slated for completion in 2027.
Route 161, where it runs under the bridge and through the Exit 74 interchange, will be widened by 40 feet under the bridge and raised by up to 2 feet between Costco and Stop & Shop.
“The transformation that East Lyme is going to see over the next three months is going to be significant,” Obey said.
So are the traffic implications.
Obey said work done so far on Route 161 has included sporadic lane closures to relocate utilities or to accommodate smaller, short-term projects.
“That’s all about to change,” he said.
The most immediate effects will be felt as Route 161 is closed overnight for two weeks starting Sept. 8 for the installation of four, 200-foot-wide girders atop abutments that have risen up over the course of this year adjacent to the existing overpass. During the day, Obey said, traffic will be reduced to one lane in each direction.
“We’ve had single lane closures out here, but this will be consecutive,” he said. “Every day until that’s done.”
State Department of Transportation Project Engineer Andrew Millovitsch said cranes hauling the structural steel into place will be the most visible and far-reaching sign of the new phase.
“Once they see those seven-foot-tall girders being swung into place, that’s when people’s attention is going to be way up,” he said.
Traffic impacts on the state road will continue once the new bridge is in place, according to Obey. That’s when reconstruction of Route 161 will begin overnight with one-lane closures in each direction for two months. Night-time crews will work in 500- to 700-feet increments ― described by Obey as “manageable chunks” ― as they rip up the existing road, regrade and then pave it.
Each disturbed section will remain as gravel for no more than 10 days before being paved, according to a notice distributed to local businesses by Obey’s team.
Come November, the engineer estimated relocation of the Exit 74 northbound on-ramp will take two weeks to complete as it is moved closer to the retaining wall built after more than 800 feet of ledge was blasted away over the final quarter of last year.
The move will require the complete closure of the on-ramp for those two weeks as crews “shove it over, pick it up 30 inches, pave it, and get it back into service,” according to Obey.
Grade changes are a key component of the project designed to increase safety in the historically crash-prone area. The work will get rid of the hills and valleys that currently make it hard for drivers to see ahead.
“This geometry change, this raising of the highway and cutting the highway, is going to eliminate that so you never lose sight of the vehicles in front of you, which will improve the accident rate,” he said.
The highway will be raised on one side of the overpass and lowered on the other to make for a more level commute. Obey described it as a “radical change.”
“I was with the (state) Department of Transportation for 35 years. I’ve never seen a limited access highway raised 14 feet and cut 10 feet,” he said.
Millovitsch said he anticipates the return next year of automated speed cameras affixed to trucks parked on the side of the highway that send warnings or tickets to the owners of vehicles going more than 15 mph over the limit. The project was one of the pilot sites for the DOT’s “Know The Zone” program.
Obey emphasized the importance of watching out for construction crews on the highway and Route 161. The work planned over the next three months amounts to $25 million, according to Obey.
He emphasized work in this $25 million phase of the project will bring construction crews night and day into roadways where they haven’t been before.
“We want people to be aware of workers on the roads,” he said. “We’re not going to be behind barriers.”
I-95 project continues to transform East Lyme, two lanes at a time
January 21st, 2024
(Photo credit: Dana Jensen/The Day)
By Elizabeth Regan
Day Staff WriterEast Lyme ― Route 161 in the area of Interstate 95 was a flurry of activity on a recent weekday morning as the four-and-a-half-year reconstruction project that began last March entered its second stage.
The latest phase of the project was made possible by the most visible hallmark of the project to date: the months-long effort by engineers from Maine Drilling and Blasting to dislodge an 800-foot expanse of ledge on the northbound span. The last blast went off earlier this month.
By the end of 2024, the project’s senior management team said drivers can expect to see extensive overpass work, the creation of a new Exit 74 northbound on-ramp and jarring elevation changes as the roadway is leveled out in phases.
Drivers who have become accustomed to the 50 mph construction zone with narrow, shifting lanes will see the situation intensify over the coming year. Because of contractual obligations to keep two lanes open at all times, there will be instances when southbound traffic will be shifted onto northbound lanes as the overpass work is completed in three stages.
On Route 161 Wednesday morning, Resident Engineer Robert Obey of the engineering firm GM2 was stuck at a light in his pickup truck with state Department of Transportation project engineer Andrew Millovitsch. A broken sensor on the month-old Exit 74 off-ramp traffic signal was creating congestion on Flanders Road heading north.
“Andrew, this is not good,” he said. He looked on as the highway dumped two lanes of traffic onto the road where drivers had to merge to avoid a cable truck and a police detail that had closed the right lane for utility work.
The sensor, damaged in heavy rain the previous Friday, was awaiting replacement parts expected that day.
“It’s a perfect storm,” he said.
Obey emphasized the interconnected nature of the $148 million project planned in multiple phases through 2027. Utility work must happen to allow for replacement of the overpass as well as the widening and leveling of the northbound side of the highway by the end of this year. That, in turn, must be finished before the southbound side and Route 161 underneath it can be addressed.
The new northbound off-ramp was unveiled as what Obey called an “early Christmas gift” in December. This year, work will continue to focus on the northbound side.
“We’re not touching southbound,” he said.
At the busy construction zone that now sits where the old ramp was, Obey said tall piles of dirt weren’t just “junk hills.” He pointed to a surveyor with a GPS receiver standing with a drainage subcontractor on one of the mountains of infill that will eventually become the foundation for new northbound lanes rising more than a dozen feet over the existing span.
To rid the dangerous thoroughfare of the hills and valleys that currently make it hard for drivers to see ahead, the side south of the bridge will be raised more than a dozen feet while the other side will be lowered about 9 feet.
Obey said a massive temporary retaining wall to be built this year between the new off- ramp and the bridge will be the earliest manifestations of the extent of the elevation changes ahead.
“People are going to drive by, they’re going to look over and they’re going to see a 14-foot earth retaining wall that’s going to temporarily support the highway,” Obey said.
Once the retaining wall goes up and the two new lanes are constructed, northbound traffic will be traveling that much higher and about 40 feet to the side of where it flows now. He said the gradual shift won’t be noticeable for those looking ahead, though a look down at the unchanged side of the highway will leave drivers feeling like they’re 14 feet in the air.
On the other side of the bridge, crews were deep in the crevasse next to the existing northbound highway where the new, wider span will be built. They were using a rig to pound 30-foot rods at 30-degree angles into the earth with grout reinforcements for another temporary retaining wall.
“When we put traffic down here, you’re going to see these huge walls and go, ‘Wow, I’m in a hole. I’m in a big hole,’” Obey said.
The chasm was created by the blasting work that closed the highway for short intervals most weekdays since Aug. 1. The goal was to keep the closures below 20 minutes, though that didn’t always happen in the densest areas of rock.
Millovitsch said a less intensive blasting project will occur on the southbound side sometime in 2025, with brief closures expected.
The bridge
At the main construction site on Route 161, the cranes that have started to show up on trailers for work on the south side of the bridge. The engineers said installing the south half of the bridge will be the most high-profile task through the winter.
“Once that crane boom goes up in the air, it’s going to draw people’s attention,” Millovitsch said.
The cranes’ main job will be to swing 180-foot steel girders into place sometime around April, according to Millovitsch. But they will be used before that on abutment work necessary to widen the bridge about 40 feet on either side.
Obey said the main traffic impacts will come from the installation of the steel beams over two weeks. The work will require overnight closures on Route 161.
When that happens depends largely on factors including how long it takes the steel to arrive in a business climate that hasn’t fully recovered from supply chain disruptions in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
While clauses in the agreement between the state and its contractors restrict major closures between Memorial Day and Labor Day, Obey said the project can’t afford any major delays.
“We have a contract, but they have the authority to change the contract at any time if it’s in the best interest of the project and the best interest of the taxpayers,” he said.
He reiterated that each major step of the project relies on completion of the one before it ― and on the vagaries of the weather. That’s why putting off the bridge work for several months could snowball into an extra year on a timeline already set to last more than four.
“Every business decision we make is one of balance,” he said. “Trying to strike a balance between being productive on the construction side and not turn the whole place into a parking lot with gridlock.”
Speed enforcement
The engineers credited the DOT’s work zone speed camera pilot program, which expired with the new year, for “changing the culture” of speeding on the interstate in East Lyme.
“Speeds are definitely down,” Obey said. “The vast majority of drivers are sensitive to the speeds through the work zone.”
The local roll-out of the DOT’s Know The Zone pilot program on June 5 brought SUVs equipped with cameras to snap pictures of vehicles going more than 15 mph over the limit. The first violation came with a warning directed to the registered owner of the vehicle, while the second came with a $75 ticket. Subsequent violations cost $150 each.
DOT spokesman Josh Morgan said the agency is writing a report and drafting a bill proposal to continue the work zone speed camera program. It’s up to lawmakers to decide if the pilot program authorized to last through 2023 should become permanent. The upcoming session of the state General Assembly begins next month and adjourns May 8.
Millovitsch expressed surprise and disappointment the camera-equipped SUVs are no longer a fixture in East Lyme.
“We were lucky enough to be part of the pilot program, because it was obviously super beneficial for us,” he said. “So if they do implement a more permanent program, I’ll certainly see that we get on the list.”
Morgan said 24,875 warnings and 724 tickets were issued in the pilot program statewide. He could not provide the tally from East Lyme by press time.
He said the state spent $4 million on the pilot program.
Obey said state troopers will go back to doing speed enforcement the old-fashioned way.
“The backup plan has always been to have Connecticut State Police do active speed enforcement through the work zone,” he said. “So we would simply revert back to that.”
Posted in: In the News
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