128 Widening

Ron Newman said:
Doesn't all traffic coming out of the office park turn right? If so, why is any police detail needed?
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The office park access road is directly in the middle of a measly 550' merge lane between a route 9 onramp from Chestnut St and the ramp to 128. So you've got people from Chestnut Street trying to get up to speed to merge onto route 9 and/or 128, as well as people decending a pretty large hill on WB RT9 merging over to get on route 128. The police detail sets up cones to force the people getting on route 9 from chestnut st to merge over before the office park exit, and to keep traffic on route 9 from moving over to get to the 128 ramp before the exit. It allows people to have a chance to exit out of the office park without getting creamed. The flashing lights also keep people doing the speed limit down the hill, instead of the 70mph that seems standard the rest of the time.

Unless they dug an underpass to connect the office park to the one on the other side of 128 and closed the existing access road, I honestly think having a detail is the safest thing.
 
davem said:
My girlfriend used to work in that office park. The cop is needed, but is all that's needed, and only around 5 when the whole park empties out. Why waste the money fixing it right for an hours worth of traffic a day?
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Police details are 4-hour minimum. So if they're really only working an hour or two I bet that's a pretty popular detail!
 
Kahta said:
Where is the value add in a company HR department staggering work times?
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Lots of companies start at different times of the day. I don't mean different departments of the same company staggering start/end times (although salaried employees can often do this on their own), I mean different companies in the office park staggering their hours from one another to smooth out the traffic flow.

Wow yeah, that's ridiculous...
 
BussesAin'tTrains said:
Lots of companies start at different times of the day. I don't mean different departments of the same company staggering start/end times (although salaried employees can often do this on their own), I mean different companies in the office park staggering their hours from one another to smooth out the traffic flow.

Wow yeah, that's ridiculous...
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Given that it's an office park, probably 85% of the employees are salaried... how could that possibly be done in an effective way? I can't even imagine the reaction if HR at my office tried to regulate this for the sake of saving money on a police detail.
 
Unless they dug an underpass to connect the office park to the one on the other side of 128 and closed the existing access road, I honestly think having a detail is the safest thing.
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Not an underpass for the office park but an overpass from further up the hill would allow West bound drivers to get over to the on ramp, still keep the existing on ramp as well for the office park, the two on ramps would merge zbput half way to the 128 merge 500? I drive West on 9 in the mornings and I'm glad I don't need to get on the 128 N ramp.
 
dhawkins said:
Not an underpass for the office park but an overpass from further up the hill would allow West bound drivers to get over to the on ramp, still keep the existing on ramp as well for the office park, the two on ramps would merge zbput half way to the 128 merge 500? I drive West on 9 in the mornings and I'm glad I don't need to get on the 128 N ramp.
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That's a fantastic idea, but I'm not sure MassDOT could ever get Harvard Pilgrim to agree to it. Wouldn't be too expensive to construct, either.
 
Bid results for the final phase:
Barletta Heavy Division, Inc. $137,590,000.00
McCourt-Skanska JV $149,724,715.70
Middlesex Corporation $150,969,532.00
DW White-SPS Joint Venture, LLC $155,091,145.91
Walsh/Lynch Joint Venture $166,594,268.00

McCourt, Middlesex and DW White/SPS have by far the most experience with this type of work (notice how their numbers are bunched together). To my knowledge Barletta has never done a job like this before (notice how he left $12M+ on the table). Will be interesting to see how this turns out...
 
AmericanFolkLegend said:
Bid results for the final phase:
Barletta Heavy Division, Inc. $137,590,000.00
McCourt-Skanska JV $149,724,715.70
Middlesex Corporation $150,969,532.00
DW White-SPS Joint Venture, LLC $155,091,145.91
Walsh/Lynch Joint Venture $166,594,268.00

McCourt, Middlesex and DW White/SPS have by far the most experience with this type of work (notice how their numbers are bunched together). To my knowledge Barletta has never done a job like this before (notice how he left $12M+ on the table). Will be interesting to see how this turns out...
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Out of all of those I would take the Middlesex Corporation. Plenty of Equipment and they have experience in major highway/bridge construction (examples: I-495 Lowell Bridge Bundle, Route 9 Lake Quinsiagmond Bridge). I agree to as the next one I would take would be SPS/DW White. They are doing the Crosbys Corner in Lincoln and will be replacing the Route 2 Over Route 128/I-95 bridges in Lexington. Remember SPS has already done Phases 1 & 2 and McCourt has done phases 3 & 4.
 
Not sure how often you drive the stretch of 128 where the main work is happening, but it seems like the crews will start work on something, work on it for a couple of weeks and then move onto something else before it's finished. They've been working on the 109 overpass replacement for over 18 months now and it's not even halfway done. I read that they encountered some issues about 7 months ago with bedrock, but at what point does this get done?
 
mass88 said:
Not sure how often you drive the stretch of 128 where the main work is happening, but it seems like the crews will start work on something, work on it for a couple of weeks and then move onto something else before it's finished. They've been working on the 109 overpass replacement for over 18 months now and it's not even halfway done. I read that they encountered some issues about 7 months ago with bedrock, but at what point does this get done?
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The northbound 109 overpass is all finished. I'm not sure why they havent S-curved the traffic off the old span onto the new one yet and started removing the old span. Or why it's taking them so goddamn long to finish the exit ramp and soundwall (there are backhoes and cops out there every single day, so they are working). Since it looks like they're making good progress on the NB Charles crossing and 135 overpass you would think mid-Fall is within reach for opening up the 4th lane to Great Plain Ave.

SB @ 109 they just put the framing for the concrete pour up along the bedrock, so looks like they're getting closer to being able to pour the abutments. But after demolishing the old overpass they have to go in and blast out still more bedrock to clear the shoulder. I'm gonna guess 1 more year before the SB extra lane can open.

I'm also not sure why they haven't started digging up the grass median from where it currently ends north of the Needham Line overpass and started building the jersey barrier. That's all the widening required for +1 more mile of lanes going as far as the Kendrick St. approach (where they'll need the grass median for bridge replacement staging). It's not like there's EIS'ing to be done on that crap crabgrass median, and if they started now they could have it all done by ground freeze and close the NB lane gap to a scant 2 miles. They did the median south of there to the Charles crossing pretty much inside a single summer season.
 
The Needham Line overpass to Kendrick Street is out of the Phase 4 project zone. Phase 5 will focus on that section all the way to Route 9.

The Route 109 overpass is a major issue. So for anyone who does not know the original plan was to rock socket the piles into bedrock but when they started pile driving they found more dirt and sand then pure rock meaning the piles would not be stable enough. Also because of this issue the telephone poles that had to be relocated also needed to be rock socketed. It took MassDOT and the contractors months but they finally have come up with a solution and ever since they are working to finish the bridges by Next Summer.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
The northbound 109 overpass is all finished. I'm not sure why they havent S-curved the traffic off the old span onto the new one yet and started removing the old span. Or why it's taking them so goddamn long to finish the exit ramp and soundwall (there are backhoes and cops out there every single day, so they are working). Since it looks like they're making good progress on the NB Charles crossing and 135 overpass you would think mid-Fall is within reach for opening up the 4th lane to Great Plain Ave.

SB @ 109 they just put the framing for the concrete pour up along the bedrock, so looks like they're getting closer to being able to pour the abutments. But after demolishing the old overpass they have to go in and blast out still more bedrock to clear the shoulder. I'm gonna guess 1 more year before the SB extra lane can open.

I'm also not sure why they haven't started digging up the grass median from where it currently ends north of the Needham Line overpass and started building the jersey barrier. That's all the widening required for +1 more mile of lanes going as far as the Kendrick St. approach (where they'll need the grass median for bridge replacement staging). It's not like there's EIS'ing to be done on that crap crabgrass median, and if they started now they could have it all done by ground freeze and close the NB lane gap to a scant 2 miles. They did the median south of there to the Charles crossing pretty much inside a single summer season.
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I think there are utilities that need to be moved to the new bridge off the old bridge before they demolish that one.
 
mass88 said:
Was the 109 overpass always 2 lanes?
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4 lanes. It's a typical ridiculously overbuilt Massachusetts cloverleaf where a 2-lane road becomes a mini-expressway through the interchange impossible for pedestrians or bikers to cross.

They demolished half of each overpass at the start of the project to create staging room for the new spans. New spans are 4, just like before.
 
Looks like they're starting to make some good progress on the 109 overpass replacement portion of the project. The i-beams have just been laid on the southbound side overpass. It seemed like in the last couple of weeks they made a lot of progress in finishing the new bases to support the overpass.

They also have completed the northbound bridge over the Charles River. However I have noticed crews digging into the recently laid concrete deck. Not sure what they're doing.
 
mass88 said:
Looks like they're starting to make some good progress on the 109 overpass replacement portion of the project. The i-beams have just been laid on the southbound side overpass. It seemed like in the last couple of weeks they made a lot of progress in finishing the new bases to support the overpass.

They also have completed the northbound bridge over the Charles River. However I have noticed crews digging into the recently laid concrete deck. Not sure what they're doing.
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Last time I went by there they were finishing off the curbing around the freshly-poured concrete abutments. They must be very close to finished because they packed up and hauled off all the night work spotlights and are only doing day work there now.


Other stuff:

-- Lots of new guardrail going in around the Needham Line overpass...temp lane shift and jersey barriers went up so they can work the sides. Appears to be going very fast, so they might just be blitzing this quickly before the new bridges open.

-- The interminably long delays finishing the NB 109 exit ramp also appear to be over as they've been finishing that guardrail work too.

-- They've been cleaning up the massive dirt/rock dumping ground in the center around 135 and the prison, which suggests they are very close to ending the lane split and shifting NB back onto the new bridges.

-- Pushing a shitload of dirt around on the staging area between NB Great Plain Ave. ramps. It looks like if anything in that area by the western project limits slips to spring it'll be the ramps themselves.

-- Still absolute zero done at the NB side 109 overpass that's been finished for 6 months. Not sure what they're waiting for before lane-shifting 109 onto the new span and demolishing the old. In theory NB's extra lane could open to Great Plain Ave. before Thanksgiving if they'd only shift the traffic and demolish the old bridge...but nuthin' all summer.






And elsewhere...they've started work rebuilding the Route 2 overpass in Lexington. Left lanes are shut on 2 both directions while they work on that portion of the decks. I assume this is one they'll work through the winter on. No work yet on the 128 center median in Lexington which is supposed to get the same jersey barrier treatment and widened left shoulders as the whole highway south of there, but I assume they have to finish the 2 overpass first.
 
I just assumed they were waiting for the northbound side overpass to be completed before shifting all of the 109 traffic onto the new overpasses before demolishing the old ones and rebuilding them.

The project design calls for 5 full travel lanes in each direction between Highland Ave and route 9, not sure how they're going to squeeze two additional travel lanes in on that stretch.


I also feel like they'll start work on one piece, work on it for a couple of weeks and then move and and start something else before they finish it.
 
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