PROVIDENCE – The hammering – an uneven chain of concussive metallic thuds – begins most nights around 10 p.m., just when residents at the southern tip of Fox Point are thinking about getting to sleep.
And it continues until around dawn, when workers tearing down the derelict westbound Washington Bridge reopen Gano Street and turn to quieter, less intrusive demolition work.
This nocturnal construction schedule wasn’t what residents of the neighborhood were expecting when they heard the bridge would be torn down and some probably would have objected had the demolition contractor or state Department of Transportation reached out and told them about it.
“Before this project started, they were supposed to consult and talk to the local community about some of the challenges with demolition, and they didn’t do any of that. It was a total surprise,” Lanre Akinsiku, who lives a few hundred yards from the bridge said Thursday at the corner of Wickenden and Wade streets. “My wife’s eight months pregnant. There’s a kid that lives at the end of the street. There’s a school right up here. All kinds of vulnerable people and they’ve been totally uncommunicative.”
An emergency bridge teardown in the middle of the capital city was never going to be painless. But when a consortium led by Aetna Bridge Company submitted the winning bid for a $45.8 million demolition contract, it proposed community outreach and a “Project Public Involvement Plan” to help mitigate disruption.
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“Details about construction communication will be described in the Project Public Involvement Plan developed at the onset of the program and informed by community knowledge,” the Aetna Joint Venture bid said. “Whether it be noise, dust, or concerns about traffic impacts, we recognize this issue and have been evaluating ways to ease the burden on pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists and those living adjacent to the project.”
The contractor also said it would attend “up to four” coordination meetings “with the State and other stakeholders,” and take meeting minutes.
And it would “assume one presentation and two meetings” for “interested neighborhood groups, businesses, professional groups, and other organizations.”
So far, there has been no indication any of those things were done.
The Journal requested a copy of the Project Public Involvement Plan Thursday from the state Department of Transportation and any meeting minutes, but so far hasn’t heard back.
Lawmakers want answers
House Majority Leader Christopher Blazejewski and Sen. Sam Zurier, who represent residents near the demolition site, are also trying to find out what happened to community outreach and noise reduction efforts the DOT promised before work began.
In an Aug. 22 response to the lawmakers’ questions to DOT Director Peter Alviti Jr. about what outreach would happen, DOT Director of Project Management Lori Fisette listed all the public the items in Aetna’s bid, including the”meetings with stakeholders,” “meetings for interested neighborhood groups and businesses” and the “Project Public Improvement Plan.”
Under the heading “noise,” the letter said: “The loudest noise and concussive generating activity is expected to be the use of excavator mounted hydraulic demolition hammers. As best as possible, we will schedule the use of this equipment during the daytime hours.”
On Wednesday, Blazejewski and Zurier wrote to Alviti and Fisette with a list of concerns, among them that instead of through advance notice, they had only learned about the start of demolition via news release and constituent complaints about a week after crews had begun ripping up concrete around Memorial Day weekend.
“In your August 22 response letter, you indicated that RIDOT would be taking several steps related to mitigating the negative effects on residents in the surrounding area and address their concerns,” they wrote. “Based on information received from our neighbors, none of this public outreach from RIDOT has occurred.”
The lawmakers also questioned why the DOT had told them hydraulic hammering would be used during daytime hours when the opposite was true.
“Would you please let us know when you plan on addressing these issues related to public outreach and impact mitigation in a timely manner,” they wrote.
Frank McMahon, spokesman for Aetna, referred all questions about public outreach and noise mitigation to the DOT.
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Traffic trumps noise concerns
It’s not clear exactly when the decision was made, but DOT spokesman Charles St. Martin Wednesday told the Journal that the state ordered overnight hammering, and accompanying closure of Gano Street, to avoid traffic backups during the day.
“While RIDOT typically attempts to conduct demolition during the day, in this instance we chose to conduct demolition at night, as daytime work would have necessitated a daytime closure of Gano Street that would have caused extensive congestion and delay on city streets,” St. Martin wrote. “This decision was made in concert with the City of Providence.”
St. Martin said there have been no change orders to the Aetna joint venture demolition contract.
What does Providence Mayor Brett Smiley think?
“We know that this demolition will unfortunately have a temporary negative impact on our neighbors in this area but we also know that if the necessary construction taking place on the bridge was conducted during the day our community would be faced with even more significant traffic congestion in this neighborhood as it would necessitate the closure of Gano Street,” Smiley spokesman Josh Estrella wrote. “When the city was made aware of this construction, we communicated it out via our channels to residents wherever possible.”
On Friday, the DOT announced that demolition is set to begin on the East Providence side of the bridge Tuesday with the closure of Waterfront Drive.
In contrast to the Providence waterfront, in East Providence, “Demolition activities using jackhammers will be limited to daytime hours only,” the DOT news release said.
Is this about incentive payments?
When the DOT went out to bid for a demolition contractor, it prioritized a fast wrecking plan and is offering a $3-million bonus if the old structure is down by next March. There was one other bidder whose price proposal was lower, but the Aetna joint venture plans to have the bridge down by January to qualify for the bonus with time to spare, but trying to satisfy neighborhood demands is the kind of thing that could slow a project down.
The total cost of the demolition project, including contingency and other things not included in Aetna’s contract, is $58.2 million according to the DOT’s latest monthly “snapshot” report.
There is also a question of why the state is still willing to pay an incentive for speed when there is no design, no contractor or even bidding process in place for a replacement span.
With every month that goes by without a new request for proposal to rebuild the bridge, it becomes more likely the old bridge will be gone before anyone is ready to start work on new construction.
The DOT has said it is still reviewing the responses it received Aug. 1 to a confidential construction industry sounding board effort after an initial reconstruction procurement got no responses.
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So when does the noise stop?
“We expect to complete the loud, jackhammering demolition during nighttime hours soon, by the middle of next week,” St. Martin said. “We will continue to do other demolition activities, but the noise will be reduced dramatically. All of the jackhammering associated with demolition will switch to daytime hours after the middle of next week.”
Back in Fox point, Akinsiku, a Brown University professor, said he would have liked to have seen consideration of having the demolition work start after the afternoon commute – perhaps 7 p.m. instead of 10 p.m. – and then stop at 1 or 2 a.m. so people could get at least a little sleep.
He’s also concerned there is no scientific monitoring of the air quality for dust and particulate matter on his street.
“None of this is hard and none of it takes much thought,” he said.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Washington Bridge: Neighbors want answers about noisy, late-night work
