WASHINGTON CITY – The effort to stop a slow-moving slide on a hillside portion of Telegraph Street, which has plagued the road between Washington and Highland parkways for a handful of years, is proving to be a success so far, according to the city’s public work’s director.
“We’ve been monitoring it for nearly a month now and we don’t see any movement in the hill, which is great news,” Mike Shaw, Washington City public works director, said Monday. “We actually expected some minor movement.”
The solution the city went with to shore-up the 700-foot slide zone was the construction of an earthen buttress. This was the route decided on by city officials once the actual cause of the 18-inch drop in the hillside, was determined by geotechnical engineers.
Work began Sept. 27 as heavy equipment started to move earth in preparation for the construction of the buttress. As this was done, the hillside dropped six inches, further splitting the roadway. This caused the road to be closed between Washington and Highland parkways for a month.
Work on the buttress continued and the road was reopened Oct. 28. Shaw and others have been monitoring the hill since for signs of movement. If there has been any, it hasn’t been enough to cause any concern.
“We’re very happy with the results,” Shaw said.
The buttress is composed of 100,000 yards of earth that was moved by JP Excavation on a round-the-clock schedule.
Since the hillside is no longer slipping, work will move ahead on replacing utility lines beneath the road. Crews began replacing a sewer line Monday, Shaw said. After that will be a water line and so on. Once the utility lines are done, the road will be resurfaced.
Barring weather issues, Shaw said the work could be finished in three weeks, ahead of the original January 2017 estimate.
Travel will remain restricted to single lanes and a lowered speed limit on the hillside until work is completed. Overall cost of the buttress and Telegraph Street repairs is estimated to be $1.5 million.
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Job well done ! Kudos to all those involved in making this possible and solving the problem.