Murphree Street closing for rehabilitation project

Published 3:00 am Friday, June 9, 2017

Residents that typically use Murphree Street in their daily commutes will need to find a new route in about two weeks, as the road will be closed for repairs.

Vaughn Daniels, director of environmental services for the City of Troy, said con-tractor S.A. Graham has set a tentative start date for the project for two weeks from Mon-day.

The plan was originally to get started on the project earlier, but Daniels said rain has delayed other projects that had to be done.

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The project is planned to last 60 work days, which does not include weekends or rain days, Daniels said.

The project is one Daniels said has been needed for a long time.

“Murphree Street has been in need of repair for a while,” Daniels said. “We tried to get federal assistance back in 2009. The shoulders are separating and the road is sinking. We want to repair the culvert beneath the road.”

Daniels said that the road is at a low point, making it specifically vulnerable to rain and water damage.

“We have to put in some more flumes to take the water off that road and into the drainage ditch. Once that’s completed we’ll resurface the road.”

Daniels explained what would happen if the road were left unrepaired. “The road will begin to crumble,” Daniels said. “You can notice there are grooves and cracks in the road where the road is actually separating. Water is just running off to side and it’s mak-ing the shoulder of the roads shift a little bit. So in order to fix that we’ll need to put in a curbing gutter to control where the water flow goes.”

No residents live on the stretch of the road that will be shut off, but the closure may cause some people a need to reroute, Daniels said.

“It will be closed from West College Street to approximately South Hillcrest,” Dan-iels said. “There will be no through traffic, so residents will have to find an alternate route.”

The start date of the project is still subject to change.