DERBY — The bridge carrying Route 34 over the Naugatuck River in Derby, near Route 8, will be closed overnight for two weeks.
The overnight closures of Route 34 and the bridge are necessary for the placement of concrete for portions of the new bridge deck, part of a project to rehabilitate and widen the bridge that began last year.
The closures begin Monday and continue through Friday May 6, and again Sunday May 8, 2016 through Friday May 13, state Department of Transportation officials said. The bridge will be closed from 9 p.m. until 6 a.m. on those days.
A detour will be set up using Route 115 into Ansonia to cross the Naugatuck River, Pershing Drive and Route 8. Detour signs will be posted and Derby and Ansonia, and police will assist with traffic control. One lane will be provided for emergency vehicles and pedestrians only during the closures. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Committee members, school officials and the architectural firm of Drummey Rosane Anderson will provide information about updated floor plan designs and site layouts, the timeline for the project and preliminary phasing plans. Residents will also be able to ask questions.
The committee held an earlier community meeting in March. At that meeting, the committee said the 14-month period to design the project is scheduled to completed in January 2017. The 15-month construction period is projected to commence in April 2017 and be completed in July 2018. The new schools will be open when students return to school the following month. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
DOT Readies For Next Phase Of Waterbury I-84 Work
WATERBURY — Commuters who use I-84 and Greater Waterbury residents are invited next week to learn about the next stages of the massive highway expansion project going on just east of the Route 8 interchange.
Engineers report they're on track with the $330 million budget and as much as a year ahead of schedule, but point out the work is still in the early stages with more than two full years to go.
"We just reached our first full year of construction and the landscape has changed a lot. But what we're going to do in the next year is even more," said Christopher Zukowski, the project engineer overseeing the work for the state transportation department.
Contractors are widening and straightening a 2.7-mile section of the highway, an enormous and complex job that requires rebuilding parts of seven local roads, rerouting part of the Mad River, constructing a series of bridges and erecting more than a dozen retaining walls and culverts. Zukowski and his construction team are hosting a public forum May 5 from 6 to 8 p.m. at Crosby High School's auditorium to explain what they've done so far and what to expect for the rest of 2016 and into 2017. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUEMill River Trail will run from Blake Field portion of East Rock Park down to Grand Avenue in New Haven
NEW HAVEN >> J.R. Logan, with clippers at the ready, is a bushwhacker, in addition to multiple other talents.
Logan and a dedicated group of friends have taken it upon themselves to cut through the Japanese knotweed and other invasives that border the Mill River so the rest of us can envision what it would be like to have a walking path beside this waterway. The city just received a $289,151 grant for development of a trail at the river from the Blake Field portion of East Rock Park down to Grand Avenue. Some of these trail segments have been cleared enough already to be used by walkers, birders and others interested in fishing. The grant will put down an appropriate surface and join them together.
The potential trail starting at the tidal gates near the Ralph Walker Skating Rink at State Street up to the Amtrak rail line is still pretty rugged with a bank down to the river.
A separate piece is easily accessible from John Murphy Drive between James@370, the former Federal Paper Board plant and Radiall, a French-owned electronic components company. Chabaso Bakery is also down the street. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
It Turns Out That a Safe Construction Site is a Profitable One
Safety on a job site should be Job 1 and more and more general contractors are trying hard to make it so. Too many fatalities still occur, but there has been progress in preventing them. Now there is an additional reason to push for safety: It is good for business.
An analysis of construction workplace trends and accidents by Dodge Data & Analytics finds that contractors seem to fall into one of three categories when it comes to instituting safety procedures and habits on job sites. A third of contractors stress “safety indicators,” another third only moderately practice them, and a third utilize safety measures sparingly.
What Dodge found is that 88 percent of contractors who stressed safety experienced better quality work and financial outcomes in their projects. That compares with 56 percent among those contractors less interested in establishing a safety culture. The companies stressing safety also reported two and three times better return on investments, better employee retention rates, and better success in hiring new employees.
That is news you can use: A safer construction company also is a more productive and profitable one with happier employees. It doesn't get much better than that!
The Dodge report's support for safe workplaces comes as the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports it has revised its numbers for private construction job fatalities in 2014. It bumped up the total dead to 899, a nine percent increase from the previous year and the highest number of deaths since 2008. What that means, unfortunately, is the numbers are apt to be up for 2015, too, because contractors were finding more work last year and the beginning of 2016. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
State lawmaker critical of consultant on Meriden’s two-high school renovation project
MERIDEN — Construction officials handling work at both of the city’s high schools say a new interpretation of a state statute has left millions of dollars ineligible for reimbursement by the state. But state officials say the interpretation hasn’t changed since 2008, and question the accountability of those construction managers.
The issue came up at a special School Building Committee meeting on April 7. A representative from the consulting firm Arcadis said a “recent” bulletin issued by a branch of the state Department of Administrative Services redefined a six-month window during which construction companies can submit change orders for state reimbursement. The city hired Arcadis to oversee the $107.5 million Maloney High School project and the concurrent $111.8 million project at Platt High School.
The most recent bulletin issued by the DAS Office of School Construction Grants, however, is from November 2015. The bulletin reminds construction officials of a Sept. 22, 2015 memorandum regarding the common reasons change orders are deemed ineligible for reimbursement. Further, many of the change orders rejected by the state were received by DAS seven or eight months beyond the six-month window allotted for them.
Generally, a change order is defined by the state Department of Public Works as “a written authorization to a contractor, signed by the owner, authorizing a change in the work, an adjustment in the contract sum, and/or an adjustment in contract time.” CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE