MIDDLEBURY — Early Wednesday morning parts of downtown Middlebury got closed off to traffic and Kubricky Construction conducted a trial run of the precast tunnel pieces from the Fifield Farm marshaling yard to the intersection of Merchants Row and Main Street.
To do this safely, Main Street was temporarily closed to through traffic between the Cross Street roundabout and Seymour Street starting at 6:30 a.m.
A flatbed truck carried a representative precast piece with a five-foot passenger-side overhang. That overhang meant that they had to cordon off all parking on South Main Street between the golf course and the roundabout during the dry run as well as the parking spaces in front of Ilsley Library on Main Street.
The wide piece of concrete made its way down an empty Main Street and the road was opened again to traffic before mid-morning.
Main Street will be close for a 10-week span beginning around July 13 in order to build the actual tunnel. During that period 422 pieces of concrete tunnel will be brought down Main Street.
Photos courtesy of David Devine