‘It’s a Cluster You-Know-What’: Route 106 Repaving at Silvermine-Canoe Hill To Start Wednesday

Town officials on Tuesday warned residents to avoid the area of Route 106/Silvermine Road between Canoe Hill and Valley Roads as the frequently delayed repaving of that state road gets underway this week.

The paving has already been “delayed twice,” according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann.

“They’re going to start Wednesday,” he told the Board of Selectmen at its regular meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference.

Mann continued: “They say it’s four weeks. I’m saying it’s six weeks, because it’s a monster amount of work that has to be done, and I would tell the residents to just avoid the area. Just to drive the detour, not try to go through it. They have to mill out the entire surface down nine inches, fix the base and then repave everything for the entire road.”

The comments came during Mann’s regular update to the selectmen on public works projects.

The state’s contractor on the Route 106 job, Bridgeport-based Waters Construction Co., has already earned the ire of town officials with its botched repaving of South Avenue. The repaving there is part of Aquarion’s same protracted installation of a 36-inch water main through New Canaan, made public in 2019 and launched in 2022 with a planned three-year schedule.

When Mann said the contractor was Waters, he added there’s “a conglomeration of issues that went forward” with that company.

First Selectman Dionna Carlson said, “I won’t say the term, but we all know what we’re going to say. It’s a cluster you-know-what.”

Mann responded, “We’re on air.”

Once Aquarion finishes that first stretch of Silvermine Road, it will do the shorter piece of Valley Road between Silvermine and the bridge into Wilton, Mann said. That piece will take about one week, he said.

Selectman Amy Murphy Carroll noted that Waters appears to be pushing the regular closing date of asphalt plants. According to Mann, the state enters “winter conditions” Nov. 1, with temperature restrictions starting Nov. 15 and the plants closing altogether Dec. 15.

“So he’s pushing against the clock, he’s pushing against time, but he says he’s going to make it,” Mann said. “So I said, ‘Okay. You’re going to make it.’ ”