New Sidewalks On Katharine Lee Bates Road Will Complete Walk-To-School Route For Students
Construction on Katharine Lee Bates Road continued last week, first with the installation of a new drainage system and soon, new sidewalks leading to the Mullen-Hall School.
“This project has really been in the works for about five or six years now,” said Peter McConarty, director of public works. “What we’re looking at is doing a sidewalk in the front of the pond area. It’ll be one continuous sidewalk on the school side so students won’t have to keep crossing back and forth across the street. That’s the main portion of the project. We’re repaving and we’re putting some drainage in the roadway in order to put the sidewalk in.”
Lawrence-Lynch Corporation is doing the work.
Construction initially began a few weeks ago but was halted due to the Road Race. Work picked up again last Wednesday and as of Friday, the installation of a new drainage system had been almost entirely completed.
“The drainage that we updated was the drain that was draining into the pond,” said Jonathan Croft, project manager at Lawrence-Lynch. “We put in additional drainage to get the water to go away from the pond, so it doesn’t go into the pond as a first flush, it goes into a new drainage system. Pond drainage was a point of concern for a while. With all the runoff nowadays it’s a concern, but when conservation came down and asked us to backdrain it, it made sense.”
The biggest goal for the project is to have the new sidewalks and bike lanes mostly completed before school starts up again for the fall. The sidewalk, which will be wider than most and complete with granite curbing, will serve as a complete walk-to-school route for the kids, running down Hamlin Avenue at the rear of the school and Katharine Lee Bates on the front.
“The kids are basically walking on the street right now, so we want to stop that as fast as we can,” Mr. McConarty said. “We’re trying to get it done before school starts. We’ll have some remaining items, but it’ll definitely be better.”