Allan Appel Photo
First-grader Mehki doesn’t have to get up until 6 to get ready for school, but sometimes blinding lights and jackhammers at work on the highway startle him awake by 3 or 4 a.m.
That doesn’t bode well for learning, said his mom, Kim Richardson (pictured above with Mehki).
Hers was one of more than 50 complaints, some as serious as seniors on dialysis not being able to get needed rest, that have prompted Wooster Square Alderman Michael Smart to call on the Department of Transportation for a cessation of the 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. shift of workers pounding, clattering, demolishing, and constructing a new Q‑Bridge interchange.
Although Richardson and her three kids live in a elevated townhouse on Franklin Street opposite the northbound Trumbull Street exit of I‑91, the most affected area is along Franklin Street, and, most recently, between Wooster and Water, where an antiquated sewer line is being replaced.
Smart’s appeal, communicated to state officials through state Sen. Martin Looney’s office, stated that approximately 400 or 500 neighbors are suffering from “the all-night banging, excessive noise, and high intensity lighting.”
He called the situation intolerable, with harm to seniors’ and the education of kids like Mehki.
The work at immediate issue is demolition for the I‑95 Harbor Crossing Corridor Improvement Program.
Smart also bemoaned poor notice to the community and to him personally. He said nothing short of a rescheduling the work would be acceptable.
By Monday morning, DOT Assistant District Engineer Brian Mercure was in touch with Smart by email defending outreach and the necessity of 24/7 scheduling.
“All these operations are day and night as per contract, a very aggressive schedule to make the contract dates,” Mercure wrote.
He also scheduled staff to go out Monday night to take sound readings with noise meters. “We will review the contractors procedures and might be able to implement some reduction techniques,” he reported.
Smart was not mollified. “It is insulting to myself and my constituents to suggest that it is now time to take out noise meters for measurements and to brief the neighborhood,” Smart shot back in an email message.
In a conversation with the Independent, Smart spoke of seniors recovering from dialysis, people working two jobs unable to get sleep, and the dangers this entails if it goes on long.
He scoffed at the sound-meter offering. “We’re the [sound] meters,” he said, meaning the citizens who have spoken to him.
DOT contractor equipment on Franklin Street between Wooster and Water.
They include a lifelong Wooster Square couple who own buildings near the corner of Wooster and Franklin, where a temporary sewer bypass has just been installed.
They said their neighbor’s teeth rattle, their tenants complain bitterly, although their own contacts with DOT have been polite and full of commiseration.“We know the work’s got to be done, but tenants need to sleep,” the husband said. (They did not want to be identified or photographed for this story.)
“We need to come up with an alternate schedule. No rhetoric, we need a new schedule,” said Smart.
That might not be so easy to come by. Mercure said that the work on the interchange is extensive and has to happen virtually 24 hours a day in order for it to be completed on time.
“The only time we’re not working is 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.,” he said, referring to rush hour.
He said noise mitigation has always been a part of the program.
Among the devices being used currently are mufflers, shields, and shrouds on equipment.
As to the “beep beep beep” that Mehki reported, “we’ve replaced back-up alarms in residential equipment with strobe lights,” he said. “There’s a fine line between OSHA [federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration] regulations for safety and ability to reduce noise.”
Moreover, if you do work during the day, you inconvenience drivers.
For the sewer bypass, for example, a machine must “rattle in” large pieces of steel to shore up the deep trench in which men are digging. “You put that in during the day, it [the machine] takes up the whole street. You do it at night, it vibrates.”
That’s the balancing act, Mercure put it in engineer-speak: “It would shorten duration but that would effect traffic volumes.”
That said, techniques have already been used, such as shearing away decking on the Chapel Street bridge, instead of jackhammering it, he said..
As to notifications, Mercure said DOT has met with the block watch and the management team in addition to having a briefing about construction six months ago and extensive information has been put out, Mercure said.
DOT work-in-progress at Chapel Street bridge.
Smart riposted that email notification about the current work on the website of I‑95 New Haven Harbor Crossing Improvement Program was insufficient. A community meeting and one with him as the area’s representative were called for.
Mercure offered both, in addition to the noise meterings.
He said based on the readings and a review of the operations, maybe other techniques can be put in place. He said he will report the findings to Smart in the next day or two.
Meanwhile, work will go on, he suggested, and during the wee hours. For example, the sewer bypass between Wooster and Water on Franklin is complete. But it’s only a temporary fix while the antiquated sewer is being repaired.
“The bypass we have in place for this sewer is not something the WPCA [Water Pollution Control Authority] would like to have there for the winter. We need to replace it as quick as possible. The only way to replace it is work day and night,” he said.
He said many days have been lost due to bad weather.
From the public's perspective, it would be far cheaper to temporarily relocate residents to quieter digs (like the Omni Hotel), then it will be to pay for the long-term health problems that this project will create.