LYNN ― Unannounced road construction shut off part of Central Avenue from Oxford Street to Liberty Street, affecting Olympia Square businesses and slowing steady traffic in the area to a crawl on Wednesday.
Commuting motorists and businesses alike suffered in Olympia Square as heavy machinery pulled up a recently-paved road at the intersection of Central Avenue, Washington, and Oxford streets in the downtown.
“Everybody needs to take the turn to get it done but when it’s done, they have to be out of here,” said Barry D. Calvani of Cal’s News Store, referring to the fact that Olympia Square was freshly repaved a few months ago and the businesses in the area have already gone through that inconvenience.
Calvani said they have not received any notice about the road construction as well. He heard that the work was related to fiber optics conduits that were not put under the ground when the square was redone earlier in the year.
In the weeks leading up to Wednesday, the area has seen localized construction on Washington and Munroe streets, where sections of pavement were cut out and filled with asphalt again.
Andrew Hall, commissioner of the Lynn Department of Public Works, said that it was a private company doing the work and that it was indeed related to a state-financed upgrade of the fiber optics around the city. The two projects, the rehabilitation of the Olympia Square and the fiber-optics upgrade, collided, said Hall, and he was provided with the schedule of the works at the last minute.
“They should be done in a week,” Hall said.
At around noon, Helio Silva, a baker at the Supreme Bakery, was checking the situation outside as he was trying to figure out how to get his freshly-baked bread to customers.
“First truck is already gone,” said Silva. “Second one is coming from Boston but I don’t know how they are going to do it.”
The road construction has blocked any access to the bakery, located at 418 Washington St. The bakery delivers its goods to convenience stores and supermarkets in Boston and Framingham, Silva said.
“Customers are coming little by little,” said Silva, but there was no place to park and most of the bakery business depends on in-bulk deliveries.
He was worried about Thursday’s deliveries as well, since his business was not notified about how long the construction would take and at what hours the work would be done. Silva was planning to bring delivery vans in at 5 a.m. Thursday, hoping that he could load them before the road work resumes.
The mayor’s office said the fiber optics upgrade project was approved by the City Council months ago and the state money had to be spent. The upgrade will improve connectivity around the city with easy access to utility boxes hung on poles, but first the cables have to go underground.
Fiber optics is a technology that is used to transmit internet, phone, and TV services.
