Strut-Destroying Waterbury Street Closed for Three Weeks

I recently took a ride on East Main Street in downtown Waterbury. My God.

The trip from the Waterbury Police Station to the Waterbury Green, 3 blocks? Took me about 5 minutes. Granted, it was a busy Saturday morning and there were the usual pedestrians weaving through the slow crawling cars, but the road itself was in such bad shape going Westbound from the Police Station, past the Palace Theater and Waterbury UConn, that you had to bounce across the brick/gravel/temp patch/concrete patch slowly, or risk blowing your strut or shock out on one of the divots.

Initial work on this area of East Main Street started back in 2018 when Waterbury Mayor Neil O'Leary announced that Waterbury had received a $4 million dollar grant from the State of Connecticut. O'Leary announced that the funds would be used on improvements to the infrastructure, replacing the water main system which was over 110 years old at that point, and replacing the sidewalks, bricks, and roadway through this area of East Main Street.

Mayor O'Leary announced in June of this year that Phase 1 of the Exchange Place Revitalization Project had started on June 14, 2021. Good news, O'Leary just announced on his social media that the project has progressed, and as of this morning, a new phase has begun and there is now a three week closure in place in order for work to move forward.

East Main Street in Waterbury is now closed eastbound to vehicle traffic between the Waterbury Green and South Elm Street. The contractor has placed detour signage in place, and the detour route basically takes you around St. Mary's Hospital. The detour is scheduled to be in place until October 11, 2021.