“Walnut Street between Commonwealth Avenue and Cabot Street will be closed for repaving on Saturday, August 2nd.If possible, residents should avoid Walnut Street on Saturday. There will also be no parking on Walnut Street (both sides of roadway) from 6:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, August 2nd.”
I drove through this area late Saturday night, after the paving had been completed. I’m very impressed with the quality of work, and the speed at which this phase was accomplished. I also think the City did an excellent job notifying residents to avoid the area beforehand. Congratulations [and thank you] to all for a job well done.
@Mike. They did a fine job and it’s nice to see the City start to make a dent in all the bad roads we have here. In an effort to spare my old Mercedes unnecessary wear and tear, I sought other roads when I found it almost impossible to avoid those raised manhole covers and the grating vibration and sound of driving over the scraped road surface. That all came to nothing last Monday when I drove my car into what I thought was a navigable puddle on Center Street during the torrential rain storm that also spawned the tornado that struck Revere that day. I quickly found water coming up over my windshield and the car had to be towed and totaled. The policeman who helped me told me that there were a lot of other destroyed or disabled vehicles in Newton from that storm. He said some vehicles were completely under water. I never heard any coverage about this, but I’d like to know what makes different roadways flood like that. I’ve driven that part of Center since then, and can’t figure what could have caused it to flood that way.
Jerry Reilly and me are now charter members of the Submerged Auto Club.
@Bob– Sorry to hear that your beautiful car was totaled. Sounds like you would have been better off taking your boat down Centre St that day.
@Mike Setriar. The funny thing was there was absolutely no wind associated with this.
And, of course it should have been “Jerry Reilly and I”..
Bob,
Down here in the Holla’ where I live we are suscetible to flash floods when there is a tropical downpour that is so intense and for a long enough duration that the storm drains cannot remove the water fast enough. We had a flood on the same day that you were victimized, but fortunately cars stopped before entering the water. I’ve lost two cars that were parked in the street when these flash floods happen and know of a half dozen more that have been totaled. Not much anyone can do about them, except NEVER DRIVE INTO A PUDDLE THAT YOU ARE NOT SURE OF THE DEPTH!
Would you sail near shoals without charts?
@Terry. I can still kick myself about this. I could have taken a left just before Sacred Heart and gone around the whole thing, but I just assumed I could “tack” through it because there were two vehicles in front of me that made it okay. Unfortunately, 2 were trucks and the third an SUV. They were high enough to make it.
AS a a cyclist who prefers Walnut for getting to Points South, I had noticed this impending work; biking over grooved pavement is not fun, nor was biking over the road in its previous condition. Saturday, though, I was sad to have to avoid it (for bumpier Lowell St) on my way to the Pan-Mass Challenge start in Wellesley.
Drove up Walnut yesterday, it does look great – and as Mike Striar also noted, I was impressed with the speed of the repaving part. Worth the wait, it appears.
Meanwhile, Oak St. in Upper Falls has been ground down in preparation for paving for over 3 weeks. Why such a long delay between grinding and paving?
I’ve been wondering the same thing Bruce.
Very surprised to return from vacation and find that Oak St. is still not repaved. The grinding in preparation for repaving was completed before July 18 (6 weeks ago). Why is there such a long lag between grinding and paving?
I found a “road construction schedule” page on the City of Newton website http://www.newtonma.gov/gov/dpw/highway/rdschedule.asp ; for Oak St., it says “Schedule N/A” (clearly!) and “Paving – September” (so paving will be 7 – 11 weeks after grinding was completed; the schedule also notes upcoming sidewalk work on Oak).
This seems to be remarkably inefficient, even for Newton.
Possible theories to explain the delay (other than “this is Newton”):
• The paving work was contracted out to Market Basket.
• All asphalt in Massachusetts has been diverted to filling in the holes that NStar and National Grid are digging this summer.
• A conspiracy to increase business at auto repair shops.
• David Fleishman “borrowed” the asphalt.
???
BruceB — It’s a promotion from the Biltmore. Just walk in and say “I’ll have a beer, please. And one for the road…”
With the Market Basket deal done, the paving should be completed any day now…
BruceB – 7-11 weeks between grinding and paving seems would be like a dream come true for Pettee Street, a few short blocks away from the Oak Street. The grinding of Pettee was done immediately after all the snow has melted (was it April? May?). I was so impressed with how quickly the town recognized the need to fix the street. According to the town schedule, Pettee will also be blessed in September. Holding my fingers crossed.