Paving in West Hartford Center is scheduled for Sept. 16 and 17 as part of the third and final round of repaving of West Hartford roads this season. [Updated]

Farmington Avenue and LaSalle Road repaving detour. Courtesy of Town of West Hartford

By Ronni Newton

West Hartford officials announced that paving of several roadways in West Hartford Center will take place on Monday, Sept. 16 and Tuesday, Sept. 17.

Travel lanes – not the entire roadway – are scheduled to be milled on both Farmington Avenue (from Walden Street to North/South Main Street) and La Salle Road (from Farmington Avenue to Arapahoe Road) on Sept. 16, and paving will take place on Sept. 17.

Work will take place between the hours of midnight and 11 a.m., and during that time the roadways will be closed other than to local traffic. Detours will be in place as indicated on the map above.

The work on Farmington Avenue will begin at the intersection with North/South Main Street, and although the remainder of the roadway will remain closed for several more hours, that intersection will be open in time for the morning commute on both work days.

According to the town, pedestrian access will be maintained at all times, but on-street parking in the work zone will not be permitted.

“This project is a short-term solution,” town officials said in their announcement of the plans.

Repaving of both roadways was intended to take place following the completion of utility work by the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) and Connecticut Natural Gas, however, due to the current condition of the pavement the town decided that a temporary solution that will create a smooth surface for the travel lanes was necessary. Paving only the travel lanes significant reduces the cost of the project.

Assistant Town Engineer Greg Sommer said that future utility work will eventually result in those roads being partially ripped up again, beginning as early as this fall, but it was impossible to get all of the utility work taken care of before needing to repave the roads.

“That’s expected … We determined that they wouldn’t last another few winters,” Sommer said.

Utility work is expected to take several years to complete. Once that work is complete, both roadways will be repaved in their entirety.

Other West Hartford roadways are also included in the final round of repaving, Sommer said.

The town typically does three rounds of repaving each year – work that includes milling but not complete reconstruction.

Several roadways have either undergone complete reconstruction this year, or are still in the process of being constructed. Those roadways include Garden Lane, High Street, Lancaster Road, Stanley Street, and Ridgewood Road from Farmington Avenue to Sedgwick Road.

The following roads are also included in the third round of milling and repaving:

• Clark Drive
• Dodge Drive
• Huron Drive
• Midlands
• Osage Road
• Rosedale Road
• St. Charles Street
• Seymour Avenue
• Stoner Drive
• Westmont (Clark Drive to Canal Road)

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