The City of Somerville will coordinate with MassDOT in an effort to curtail excessive after-hours construction noise.

By The Times Staff

Ward 3 City Councilor Ben Ewen-Campen requested that the Wilson administration work with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation to ensure that extremely loud construction does not occur overnight.

Workers from MassDOT drilled holes into the ground to collect soil and rock samples, referred to as “test borings,” for the McGrath Boulevard project, explained Ewen-Campen, during the May 14 City Council meeting.

These “incomprehensible” construction noises kept residents up at night who live nearby, he said.

The McGrath Boulevard project will replace the existing overpass with a street-level multimodal boulevard and is projected to cost approximately $128 million with an anticipated completion date of 2032.

“You can’t do this kind of work at night,” said Ewen Campen. “It’s unbelievable to me. I mean, they’re clearly just taking advantage of the fact that we can’t do anything about it.”

MassDOT’s overnight hours prevented daytime traffic congestion and minimized commute disruptions, but it comes with trade-offs for residents who live nearby.

“There are kids that can’t sleep, little kids. It’s just completely outrageous,” said Ewen-Campen. “It blows my mind that they’re doing this in the middle of the night.”

Ewen-Campen said he wants to emphasize that this is not an acceptable option.

“Many of my friends who live in that area described how awful it was,” said Councilor-at-Large Jon Link.” Just to be clear, this isn’t just one terrible night. This was like 10 nights.”

Link said the noise caused “prolonged sleep deprivation” and had “measurable impacts on people physically and mentally.”

Ward 2 Councilor J.T. Scott said he sympathized with the residents of Brick Bottom who endured midnight work on the GLX for a very long time, and added, “I’m hopeful that this administration will be better at interfacing with the state than previous ones were to help spare our neighbors from some of these disruptions.”