WINDHAM – At no additional cost to Windham taxpayers, Windham Center Road is being repaved for a second time, in an effort to fix the base pavement laid on the road last year, said Windham Town Manager Tony Plante at the Town Council meeting Tuesday.

The work began on Sept. 3. As part of a municipal partnership initiative project with the Maine Department of Transportation, the town of Windham contracted with F.R. Carroll, of Limerick, to remove pavement and repave a new layer before last winter. The work cost about $250,000.

“We noticed right away there were problems with it [the 2012 reclamation]. It took us until earlier this year to sort it out and work with the contractor,” Plante said.

Councilor Kevin Call wondered whether the reclamation being done was the result of an issue with raw material supplied to the contractor.

Plante said the town has not been able to “conclusively identify a cause,” but said he could point to a number of road projects statewide that had similar issues potentially due to a poor mix of liquid asphalt. Among those was an expensive redux of the Naples Causeway paving job this summer.

He said F.R. Carroll agreed to return to the site to remove the pavement placed in 2012 and redo the base “at no additional cost to the town.”

According to Plante, this time, the town will ensure that quality control engineers are on site to conduct quality-control checks to determine whether the base pavement meets town standards.

“Once that has been determined, then we will do final paving,” Plante said.

F.R. Carroll “is incurring significant additional expense,” as a result of the most recent reclamation efforts, Plante said.

Windham has a good working history with F.R. Carroll, said Plante, pointing out that “in the end, they [the contractor] were willing to step up and do the right thing. Nobody likes to have to come back and do the job over.”

As of Sept. 10, F.R. Carroll had removed a majority of last year’s pavement from the road, starting from above the public works building, located at 185 Windham Center Road, and ending at the Gorham-Windham line.

Plante called the Windham Center Road work “a bit of a headache,” especially for school buses and morning commuters, but said that F.R. Carroll has made good progress.

“It’s a matter of timing and getting the work done and we are looking forward to having it taken care over the next few weeks,” weather permitting, Plante said.

Route 302 repaving

Plante said he has also recently been in contact with the project manager in charge of a full reconstruction of Route 302, completed by the town’s contractor, Pike Industries, this summer.

While the project was completed on time and on budget, Plante said, according to the project manager, it has since raised eyebrows.

Plante said he has heard concerns from residents about “rutting and wash-boarding of the pavement and the approaches to all of the intersections,” the reason Maine DOT and Pike Industries did the work to begin with.

“It’s one of, if not, the most important roads in the community,” Plante said.

Beginning July 14 and lasting six weeks, the $1.1 million worth of roadwork, described as a“mill-and-fill project,” replaced the top layer of pavement from the routes 115/35 intersection to the Whites Bridge Road intersection, a distance of 1.16 miles.

“It’s not necessarily the fault of the contractor,” Plante said, of the issues identified in the mill-and-fill project, “but Maine DOT is aware of the issue, and with the contractor, will work together to identify what the nature of the problem is, and determine a resolution for it.”

Mallison Falls

Road closed

Plante said other road projects taking place in Windham include a bridge replacement, located along the Mountain Division railroad line over Mallison Falls Road adjacent to the Maine Correctional Center.

According to Maine DOT, initial work included modification of abutments, approach ballast reconstruction and construction of concrete beams supporting a concrete deck. No changes are proposed to the existing roadway section of Mallison Falls Road.

“It’s not as extensive as we’d hoped,” Plante said, of the project. He said DOT no longer plans to modify the bridge abutments to improve sight distance, due to lack of funding.

“It creates safety issues if you have two vehicles passing through at the same time, which does happen,” Plante said.

Another “historic problem” is that tall trucks have been known to run into the railroad overpass, so last year Maine DOT raised the bridge, Plante said.

The bridgework is expected to begin Monday, Sept. 16, and could take up to two months to complete, Plante said. The road will be closed to vehicle traffic for the length of the repairs.

Public Works will also begin paving local roads, weather permitting, within the next week, Plante said, including ditching and replacing culverts.

Roads Plante mentioned include Hemon Cobb Road, Smith Road, Cook Road, Starlit Way, Stonebrook Road, Colby Drive and Anderson Road, according to the Windham website.