MIDDLEBURY — Work on the downtown Middlebury rail bridges project will resume later this month when construction crews from companies Kubricky and ECI return to complete a drainage system that will funnel water from the railroad bed into the nearby Otter Creek.
The drainage system includes the boring of four shafts and related micro-tunneling at several downtown locations, including alongside Printer’s Alley, behind Triangle Park, and alongside the rail line in the Marble Works.
As summer arrives, the focus will shift to replacing town water and sewer lines that run alongside and across the rail corridor, according to Jim Gish, community liaison for the rail bridges project. The $72 million undertaking, financed primarily with federal money, will replace the overpasses on Main Street and Merchant’s Row with a 350-foot-long precast concrete tunnel. Plans call for that tunnel to be installed during the summer of 2020, with all work coming to a close in 2021.
Crews suspended construction around a month ago, while project partners — including the Vermont Agency of Transportation, local officials, contractors and subcontractors — have been preparing final plans for the work to come.
Gish, in his most recent email communiqué to the community, announced a comprehensive update on the project has been set for Tuesday, May 14. Attendees will be given what Gish described as a “realistic, in-depth walk-through of what we can expect starting in summer 2019 through the end of the project in Summer 2021.”
The time and location of the meeting will be firmed up in the coming weeks.