National Grid plans to cut a 3,500-foot trench up Lower Broadway and Charlotte Street for underground conduit and ten new manholes, a job of five to seven months, and the City Council’s Government Operations Committee on Monday, April 27, recommended the petition only after extracting commitments on hours, staging and repaving.
Moses Okokuro of National Grid said the trench will run in the northbound lane, “as much as possible stay on the right side,” from Lower Broadway to just past Second Street, with manholes no more than 500 feet apart. Conduit installation alone could take three and a half months; the whole job “five to seven months.” Councilor Peter Pietrantonio set the tone: “As we just did Broadway over, we repaved it. And just for the record, my company repaved it. So I got beat up on Facebook that I should be excusing myself, but I’m not gonna.” He asked whether the utility would work at night, as it did in Glendale Square. “We can do that,” Okokuro said. He asked for restoration from the centerline to the curb, not just the trench. “Correct,” Okokuro said. He asked for a written plan showing where equipment will be staged and when each section starts, submitted to the engineering department. “I don’t want equipment because you leave equipment, you know, people gotta deal with it all day,” Pietrantonio said. Okokuro agreed to temporary pavement over each section as the work moves up Broadway.
Councilor Michele Capone asked what happens to small businesses that rely on the few parking spaces on the north side of Broadway and whether the bus lane would route around the work; Okokuro said crews start about 7 a.m. with police details, cover sections they are not working, and yes on the bus lane. She asked for a hotline for residents who find their driveway blocked; “we can definitely provide a number,” he said. Chair Holly Garcia, who lives on Broadway, said the Glendale Square project ran “a year and four months” and she did not get notice “until three days after you all started.” She asked crews to finish one block before starting another, to secure manhole covers that clank under traffic, and reminded National Grid of the city ordinance, passed after pipes blocked four parking spaces in front of a business for months, that construction materials cannot sit in one spot more than three days. “Definitely need a staging area, not our street,” she said. Pietrantonio said city engineering had confirmed the centerline-to-curb repaving and moved favorable action, which carried.
