UXBRIDGE — During the Uxbridge Select Board’s meeting on Sept. 28, Select Board Clerk William MacMillan called the state’s contractor working on Route 122 “the most disrespectful, inattentive bunch of yahoos I think I’ve ever seen.”
MacMillan’s criticism followed concerns raised by Select Board member Peter DeMers about the condition of Route 122 between the traffic light near the Big Y and the bridge behind the courthouse. DeMers said the roadway had been milled about two weeks earlier but he had seen little work since, describing the stretch as a “minefield.”
The work is part of Phase 2 of the ongoing Route 122/South Main Street/Millville Road Reconstruction Project. According to mass.gov, the Route 122 reconstruction project runs from Susan Parkway to Route 16 and includes roadway and sidewalk reconstruction, drainage improvements and pedestrian and bicycle accommodations.
DeMers said he expected that if the contractor, A.F. Amorello & Sons Inc., was going to make the road worse in order to ultimately improve it, the contractor needed to stay on top of making the necessary repairs.
“You don’t rip the roof off your house unless you’re ready to put a new one on right away,” DeMers said.
DeMers said crews have repeatedly abandoned the project for days at a time, although he acknowledged work had continued farther north, including the replacement of a water line.
“I’ve often thought to myself, has the company gone belly up? Did they just shut their doors, lay everybody off and declare bankruptcy? Because it is like a ghost town. They just disappear,” DeMers quipped.
MacMillan also criticized what he described as inadequate safety measures around the construction area.
“The notion of going off and tearing a road open like that and not even having the common courtesy to put up a caution sign that there’s no freakin’ road might have been part of the problem,” DeMers said. “There’s no motorcycle safety signs. There’s no excess lighting. You can’t see at night. It wouldn’t have killed anybody to put a spotlight on it so you can actually see where you can’t drive, but they don’t care.”
Board members also discussed a deep depression near a manhole that they said causes loud banging whenever tractor-trailers pass over it, as well as gravel and holes throughout the roadway.
Despite the criticism, Select Board Chair John Wise said that responsibility for the conditions may not rest solely with A.F. Amorello & Sons Inc., MassDOT’s general contractor for the project. Wise noted that the company has been responsive during meetings with town officials and said delays or other problems could also involve engineering decisions or direction from MassDOT.
No formal vote was taken on the matter.
