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04/11/2012 12:00 AMMost residents who have driven down Long Hill Road have noted the transitions from narrow to wide, and the flooding that often closes off parts of the road during a heavy rainfall. Town Engineer James Portley is hoping to give the road a major facelift by making it one of his top priorities.
"It's something that's been on our capital improvement program for a number of years and it just moved up to the top of our priority list," Portley said. "It will be just another piece of the town's infrastructure that's updated to the current standards."
Portley took the proposed project to the Board of Selectmen (BOS), which set a public informational meeting for Tuesday, April 24 at 7:30 p.m. at the Community Center. There, Portley will provide insight to residents on the project that he's hoping to get fast-tracked as soon as possible.
The total cost of the project is estimated at $3,273,500, 80 percent of which will likely be covered by federal money, with 10 percent by state and 10 percent municipal, leaving the town with an anticipated cost of $327,350.
Portley and BOS members explained the town can borrow to pay for the work. The town also has about $50,000 in dedicated road funds that will cover the cost of the initial design phase.
"We're using two areas of funding-one is the dedicated road fund and the second would be from the bonding," First Selectman Joseph Mazza said. "Then the third that I will put out is that if we do a lot of the design work, the state or the federal government in fact will pay us for part of the design work."
The town engineer presented to the BOS a comprehensive written construction project summary report for the road done by the Department of Transportation (DOT). There are a number of issues he is hoping to address in the project, including widening and supplying more drainage structures.
"The road is in generally good shape, but the big problem is that it widens and narrows, widens and narrows-it's inconsistent. We have a major flooding problem right behind Bishop's…That road is closed several times a year," Portley said. "We want to make sure that it's improved to the point where it's passable at all times."
The intersection to turn onto Long Hill Road will also be addressed as part of the project.
"As part of the project we're going to upgrade the intersection, improving the radius of the turning movement so that larger trucks can make that turn at the corner. It's a tight corner [and] large vehicles have had a history of knocking over the fire hydrant, which is right there at the corner and there's a couple of posts that protect that fire hydrant and they get knocked down frequently," Portley stated. "We're going to open that up, move the fire hydrant back, and were hoping to do something with the traffic control on the corner."
"The state controls the light on Route 1, and we're going to improve the signal itself so there's a better division of time for transportation," Portley added.
He is hoping to get this project underway as soon as possible, but is unsure about when the improvements will kick off.
"It's going to go through a full design and permitting process. That takes some time and when we go through that, we're also trying to get into the funding pipeline from the federal and state government, so it's very hard to predict an exact day when we begin construction, but we'd like to get started with the design as soon as possible," Portley said.