There has been a little road project in town involving the removal of elevated highway and associated bridges. It started this past spring and began with the demolition of three buildings and a number of billboards. Next came the removal of concrete bridge decking and the destruction of the steel girders underneath. Big, massive, gigantic excavators with drills, hammers, and sheers worked night and day (or so I’m told) during this phase of the project. It seems like the type of material tailor made for this site so where has it been until now? Oh yeah, there also has been a small fleet of private contractor dump trucks hauling material to and fro. I’m talking old Ford LTL 9000, Western Stars from the era of the White Corporate Cab, Mack DM’s, Autocar ACLs, the list goes on. The worst part is, I’ve passed through this mess at least twice days for the past 6 months and never bothered to even think about taking the action in. That was until yesterday when six heavy haul trucks arrived with the new bridge beams. I finally woke up.
To be honest, I always wanted to check out this work but convinced myself that there was not safe vantage point. Checking out the job site today I found that I could have been sitting in the parking lot of a local Italian restaurant eating veal parm and pasta fagioli while seeing all there was to see. The good news is that the east bound lanes are scheduled to under go the same treatment next year or soon after. This time around I’ll be on my game.
Click here to see the type of footage I should have been producing. Below, a little video of the action with a guest star at the end.
You missed the 2 giant dirt drill/augers that they had working all summer too… The seemed to be in the same spot all summer… with in 200′ east of Beech St.
You also for got to cover the blow out of the temporary wall at Teal, causing the earth under the westbound lanes to give way…