MIDDLEBURY — A new box culvert is beginning to take shape on Route 116 in Middlebury, which has been closed to through traffic since Aug. 3 when flooding wiped out the prior culvert near Dow Pond. Middlebury public works officials found a sizable length of replacement culvert in New York state, but a portion of it has had to be poured and cured. Here we see a crane and an excavator working at the project site this past weekend. Officials have yet to set a date for reopening road (also known as Case Street), which remains closed between Cady Road and Quarry Road.

INDEPENDENT PHOTO/JOHN S. McCright

Neighbor Glenn Goodwin noted that this is the largest, most complex transportation story since the town built the Cross Street Bridge (state officials were in charge of the downtown rail tunnel). The equipment is huge, the gap in the road is 120 feet and the hole is 45 feet deep. “The new culvert is large enough for two cars to drive through side-by-side,” he said.

Goodwin said that with the road closed it is nice to hear the birds instead of the Harleys.