SAFETY ALERT: All RecPath users should be careful when using the RecPath in the vicinity of the White House on Nells Rock Road this weekend. A private contractor doing work for the City (work not associated with the RecPath) started to use some of the millings that were piled up in the parking lot, and stuck all his equipment directly in the middle of the RecPath yesterday. I went out to look at the Dog Park construction and was amazed to see how poorly safety in this work zone was being handled. The Shelton Lakes Recreation Path gets hundreds of users per week and this has been a recurring problem at this site where every City project just dumps their junk there without considering all the other users of the Greenway.
If you are out riding bikes with kids or hiking on the trails please be careful to avoid this hazard so you or your family doesn't get hurt. This should be a temporary problem and hopefully the contractor will clear this up quickly in the next couple of days.
The Contractor should not of placed his equipment in the RecPath in the first place. We wouldn't put a screener and earthmoving machinery directly in the middle of the soccer fields at Capewell Park and expect the kids to play around it, would we?
Second, there are no advance signs to alert the public that they are entering an active construction area, or how to avoid the problem. Hopefully everybody uses common sense & goes around the area. The Dog Park is also under construction but you can walk up the driveway & around the fence & get back on the RecPath above the Dog Park.
There will be additional construction going on here in the near future. Nells Rock Road is going to be closed on Tuesday for construction of a culvert at Hope Lake. Construction of the Dog Park is on-going and the gates and parking lot will continue. New Construction of the Recreation Path will be starting here early in November (but with warning signs) and the public will need to avoid that construction if they want to use this section of the RecPath. Hopefully our RecPath Contractor will not be as sloppy as this guy & there won't be any safety issues.
Please be careful using the RecPath south of Shelton Avenue (Rt. 108) over the next couple of weeks.
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Sounds like a lack of communication. Maybe we need some signs out there telling contractors the path is there and not to block it.
ReplyDeleteI spoke to the contractor, a very friendly guy who is on the Inland Wetlands Commission in Beacon Falls. As was suspected, he did not know about the Rec Path and promised to make it easier to cross through. He said they are breaking up the millings and transporting them to Long Hill School.
ReplyDeleteThe dog park fence will likely be done tomorrow, but the dips under the fence are not their responsibility, so the City will have to fill the gaps under the fence before it can be opened.
11-8-10 The contractor has pulled his equipment out and the RecPath is clear again.
ReplyDeleteLooks like a very beautiful area, at least during Fall!
ReplyDelete