November 4, 2016: Construction Update

During the past seven weeks, the Rail Trail contractor constructed a new timber retaining wall south of the High Street trail underpass, constructed a smaller stone retaining wall south of Purchase Street, and began the process of rebuilding some of the large granite block retaining walls north of the High Street underpass.  In order to hold the earth so that the granite blocks could be safely removed, a temporary retaining wall needed to be installed which entailed driving steel h-piles and installing timber lagging.  The pile driving took several days and caused some annoying vibrations for neighbors.  The contractor then formed and poured concrete footings that will support the rebuilt granite block wall.  In addition, the contractor brought in fill for the trail corridor between Purchase and Hancock Street as well as Hancock and Chestnut Street.  The compaction of the fill in order to avoid settlement and sinkholes unfortunately caused some more annoying vibrations for neighbors.  We greatly appreciate the neighborhood’s tolerance of these irritating but necessary and temporary disruptions.  The contractor then paved the base course of asphalt along several sections (about 35%) of the trail – in the woodland area south of March’s Hill, between Water and Harrison Streets, between Hancock and Chestnut Streets, and a portion south of Purchase Street.  The top course of asphalt will be the last thing they do at the end of the job, after the heavy construction equipment is done.  In addition, the City, the contractor, and MassDOT met with National Grid representatives regarding the utility’s anticipated repair and replacement of a revetment along a portion of the substation shoreline near the route of the Rail Trail.