Lt. Governor Polito Congratulates Mattapoisett

On August 25, Mattapoisett’s tiny town hall was filled with officers from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and the governor’s office, including Lt. Governor Karyn Polito, to congratulate the Town on receiving a $500,000 grant from D.O.T’s Municipal Small Bridge Program.

And no one was more pleased than the Town’s own highway surveyor, Barry Denham, whose efforts in securing the grant monies for repairs to the Randall Bridge on Acushnet Road proved successful. This latest local bridge in need of repair is located just south of the intersection between Acushnet Road and Hereford Hill Road.

“I wanted us all to meet so we could put faces with names,” Polito said. Around the conference table were State Representative and Chairman of the Joint Committee on Transportation William Straus, Selectman Jordan Collyer, Police Chief Mary Lyons, and Denham. Also present were Mass D.O.T. District 5 members: Shane Sousa, district bridge engineer; Pamela Haznar, district project developer (Haznar is also a Mattapoisett resident); Mary Jo Perry, highway director; and Jonathan Gulliver, highway administrator.

Polito opened the conversation by discussing the governor’s plans to bring state government into partnership with cities and towns throughout the commonwealth.

”The Community Compact is uniting all cities and towns, and through this process, we found there are a lot of municipally owned bridges that don’t qualify for federal aid,” Polito said. Continuing on she said, “These bridges are often in key areas of the towns and when they go down, it’s very disruptive to the community.”

The small bridge program is designed for bridges spanning between 10 and 20 feet in length that are wholly owned by a municipality.

Polito then explained that the program secured $50 million of the $800 million dollar transportation budget and will be distributed over a five-year period specifically to assist communities faced with bridge repair issues.

“We are here today to acknowledge your efforts,” she said addressing Denham, “…along with the state offices from Mass D.O.T. to ensure the project gets off well…. We are here to literally help you and to congratulate you on receiving the maximum grant.”

Gulliver added, “We are happy to give you the maximum amount, and to give you technical assistance from District 5.”

Denham acknowledged the assistance from District 5 when the Town was faced with a catastrophic failure at the Tinkham Bridge, a few miles north of Randall Bridge, also on Acushnet Road.

“It got ahead of us,” Denham told Polito. “We are looking to have a rapid recovery on the Randall Bridge.”

He shared that the bridge currently in question was built in 1933 by highway department personnel for a cost of $250. That comment garnered a round of laughter from the group at the table.

Straus spoke, saying, “The old thing was that towns outside Boston got screwed.” He said the current bill mandates that monies be spread across the Commonwealth. “People are happy with the program.”

Polito said, “I come from central Mass, so I’m sensitive to issues outside Boston.”

She applauded the cooperative efforts taking place now and noted that there are approximately 1,500 small bridges in need of repair.

Lyons said residents will be temporarily disrupted during the repair work on Randall Bridge and that traffic will have to be re-routed and emergency services from bordering towns will be ready to help during the construction phase. She assured everyone that it was “doable.”

Collyer said of the grant that it would allow the Town to redeploy money towards other roadway projects. He explained, “We’ve used retiring debt to keep an even flow of dollars. No one feels the impact with a combination of grants, bonds, and retiring debt.”

Denham discussed the current village street development program the town is currently undergoing. Polito asked if the Town knew about the Complete Street program. “There’s fifty million dollars in grant money through the program,” she said, adding that it uses “best practices” known today for design elements.

Denham responded that while the Town had not yet signed the Complete Street Compact, he had been trained in the process and was using many of those principles on recent roadways projects. Straus said, “Barry knows every inch of pipe and pavement in town!”

Denham said that he hopes to begin repair work on Randall Bridge in the summer of 2018 and that detours during construction should be no more than 30 days.

By Marilou Newell

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