By Stephanie Michaud
Correspondent
AYER — The Massachusetts Department of Transportation recently approved a project to repave the streets from Harvard Road to the Main Street Bridge.
The Ayer Department of Public Works is currently in the beginning stages of designing the layout.
“We are proposing to put in new drainage, new sidewalks and repaving the entire road,” said Mark Wetzel, superintendent of Public Works. “We are going to do a complete streetscape improvement.”
MassDOT will fund the project.
“The project will probably not begin until fall 2016 at the earliest,” Wetzel said. “Once it gets closer we will be having public input meetings and more information.”
The town recently repaved a small area on Washington Street to Groton Harvard Road and is urging pavement of two other roads.
“We are proposing paving Copeland Drive off of Littleton Road and Central Ave. from Groton Harvard Road to Sandy Pond Road,” Wetzel said.
These paving projects do not yet have a projected timeline. When the projects do take place, the Ayer Police Department will be monitoring traffic around construction.
“Copeland goes down to the Pepsi plants so traffic can access the road from coming in the other way,” Wetzel said. “On Central Ave., we will just do one lane at a time or a detour.”
The paving projects are funded through Chapter 90, which entitles municipalities to reimbursement of documented expenditures on approved projects. The amount a town receives depends on how many miles of road it has and its population.
Ayer was given $239,000 this year, enough to complete the approved projects.
