2021 Update #35

How You Saw It

The Highlights

• Project Survey now available

• Another punch list update

So how did we do?

Throughout the course of Middlebury’s Bridge & Rail Project, many of you have reached out with questions, concerns, observations, suggestions, complaints, and compliments.

Now you’ll have an opportunity to record your overall satisfaction with the downtown construction project and with the communications effort that accompanied it by completing a formal community survey.

As one of the most complex and expensive projects ever undertaken by the Vermont Agency of Transportation winds down—it’s also one of the first to invest in a community liaison—VTrans is asking for your perspective on how the project went and how future construction projects might benefit from the lessons learned in Middlebury.

The survey comprises some 15 multiple-choice questions with space for comments and should take only a few minutes to complete. You can access it here.

With so much construction underway this year in and around Middlebury, I wanted to emphasize that this survey is specific to the Bridge & Rail Project and so your responses should be not be influenced by your impressions of the paving of Routes 30, 125, and 7; the Town’s waterline work on Court Street earlier this year and sidewalk replacement on Main Street; and the construction of the Amtrak rail platform.

Thank you for taking the time to document your perspective on this historic project in downtown Middlebury! We’ll keep the survey open for two weeks and then I’ll report out the results in a November update.

Your Weekly Construction Update

A pared-down Kubricky crew continues to work diligently through the State’s punch list of minor repairs downtown.

Inside the rail tunnel, Kubricky is sealing some of the joints where the overhead tunnel pieces meet with hydrophobic (water-repellent) grout.

The Triangle Park fountain has undergone some further fine-tuning and will now be turned off until next Spring while the pump and its related components are winterized.

Green Mountain Pipeline, the contractor who lined the stormwater drainage pipe beneath Triangle Park earlier this Fall, is back in town this week to do some finish work on the new drainage system.

Several folks have contacted me about the tripping hazard posed by the raised curb just to the left of the traffic cone in the photo below. The Town and VTrans have discussed potential solutions, with a hand railing looking like the best option.

And up at the rail platform, as shown in our final photo, powder-coated steel benches and trash cans have been installed, the emergency call box is now operational, and L&D completed line striping the platform.

In other construction news, this week Hutchins expects to finish line striping our downtown roadways, including the crosswalks at the bottom of Printer’s Alley, as always weather permitting. Munson continues to install a new Town sewer line at the back entrance to the Marble Works and to prep the parking area in front of the new rail platform for sidewalk and curbing.

That’s all for today. See you downtown.

Please keep your comments and questions coming. Send me an email at jgish@townofmiddlebury.org and I’ll try to cover it in my next update.