White River Junction
Officials have known for years that portions of Fairview Terrace and upper Gates Street, which provide a traffic link between Sykes Mountain Avenue and the downtown area, need to be rebuilt, but the multimillion dollar price tag has prevented the town from moving forward with the project.
But Eric Goddard, an engineer for Knight Consulting Engineers, said the situation needs to be addressed soon.
“It’s basically at the point of failure,” Goddard told the Selectboard earlier this week. “Something has to be done.”
The stretch of roadway, which comes down a steep slope of land, includes several different components that are in need of repair, from retaining walls to guardrails.
Goddard was referring specifically to a 275-foot-long wall between Maplewood and Fairview terraces that is made up of dry-stacked field stones that provides support to the north side of upper Gates Street from beneath.
The town first hired the firm to review the wall in 2013; because so much time has passed, Selectboard Chairman Dick Grassi asked him to come back and present the study again to help inform the direction the town takes.
The Selectboard has scheduled a site visit for 6 p.m. Tuesday, and will meet at the intersection of Church and Gates streets.
Goddard’s report found that the wall has likely undergone several changes in its history. Originally, he reported, Gates Street was probably a narrow, one-lane road with a single stone retaining wall, but at some point it was widened to allow for two-way traffic. The stone wall was capped by three feet of concrete to give it enough height to support the widened road and a guardrail that the report describes as “substandard.”
Over the years, the edge of the road over the retaining wall has drifted by as much as 3 feet, and some of it has also settled by as much as 1 foot.
A local property owner told Goddard that the stone wall had failed at one point, and been rebuilt using rip-rap; “Rocks occasionally fall from this repair area,” according to the report.
The report also noted that, though the street is traditionally used by pedestrians, there is no sidewalk, and the steep, winding road makes it an unsafe place to walk.
The report recommended that the town take certain immediate actions in 2014, to be followed by more long-term solutions.
Short-term solutions included posting weight limit signs restricting traffic to 6,000 pounds, which the town has done, spend about $40,000 in engineering for an estimated $430,000 project to stabilize the wall and add a sidewalk.
“The recommendation was to set aside $430,000 in our 2015 budget, which we didn’t do,” Grassi said. “Those fiscal constraints are still with us.”
Public Works Director Richard Menge said the department does have money in its budget this year to do some preliminary engineering on the wall.
Robin Adair Logan, a resident of Quechee, chastised the Selectboard Tuesday for not having followed the 2014 report’s recommendations to act more quickly.
“What are you going to do if it collapses?” she asked. “You’re going to say, ’we didn’t have the money to do it,’ … . Pay attention to the people you hire.”
The report recommended long-term solutions to be implemented by 2024, including stabilizing other portions of Gates Street and Fairview Terrace, at an estimated cost of $3.4 million.
The project is possibly the most expensive item in a long list of unfunded capital improvement projects that planners say the town should tackle over the coming years. In 2014, Selectboard members raised the alarm about the dramatic disconnect between the town’s infrastructure needs and its ability to pay for them.
That disconnect has led to the closing of Wright’s Reservoir and an initiative to survey town residents about what services they might be able to do without. It has also been invoked in an effort to pass a steep tax increase in 2015, which was defeated by voters, and an effort to pass a local option tax in 2016, which was approved.
The Selectboard discussed taking several short-term measures, including possibly limiting the street to one-way traffic, which would keep vehicles away from the north side of the street, and erecting a fence to guide pedestrians down the route in a way that would keep them away from both vehicles, and the wall.
Interim Town Manager Patrick MacQueen said even those solutions would have to be vetted, because they could create problems for residents or for emergency vehicle traffic, even if the intent is to make them temporary.
“Temporary things have a habit of staying around for quite a while,” MacQueen said. “If you did that, I’m guessing that you would probably have that for a while.”
Selectboard members have indicated that they will probably seek to address the larger, $3.4 million project with a bond that would likely be presented to voters during the 2017 Town Meeting.
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.