Over the past several weeks, there has been road construction on Route 27 in Wayland. The construction has caused a considerable amount of reactions from students at WHS, as well as confusion as to why it occurred. The construction has resulted in residents waiting in an abnormal amount of traffic, and sometimes taking detours on their way to school and work.

“The limits of work are really, in essence, are what we call five tabs, which is that intersection of Old Connecticut Path and Cochituate Rd., and then we’re heading south to School St.,” Thomas Holder, Wayland Department of Public Works (DPW) Director, said.

The first stages of construction were initially done solely after 9 p.m. because the work that needed to be done required the entire road to be blocked off.

“The first part of it was all done at night, so we were working from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. because what we do is grind down the old pavement, and that takes up a lot of the road,” Holder said. “The equipment is very large, and that’s a very busy state road so we decided to do that part at night so it would be less of an impact on traffic.”

While the construction was done late at night to minimize conflict, it still had an impact on some WHS students that wanted to travel across Wayland at night.

“When they’re doing the construction at night and they close that road… it makes it really difficult because I have to take a long detour to get [to North Wayland],” junior Kathleen Tobin said.

Currently, all of the construction is being done during the day. Though the roads are accessible, the construction has caused some students to arrive at school late due to traffic, or during rush hour causing an extensive delay.

“I live really close to where the construction starts, so when I go to school it takes longer now because there’s either a cop directing traffic, which increases the time, or people are just driving more cautiously, so [the construction] has increased the amount of time it takes me to get to school,” junior Charlotte Salitsky said. “Then, later in the day during rush hour, it also takes me a long time to go anywhere I want to go.”

According to Holder, Route 27 was in need of an upgrade, and repaving the roads will allow for smoother rides and a nicer appearance for people traveling through Wayland.

“The pavement was just in very, very poor condition, so we wanted to pave it for that,” Holder said. “When you’ve got a road that’s in poor condition, a lot of people’s cars get damaged, and you’ve got a lot of potholes that are in need of repair. Once we repave, that road will be in really good shape for about 15 years, so it’ll just make the riding experience a lot better. It really, for the most part, dresses up the appearance of the town since it’s a major road.”

The DPW hopes that the construction will have a great impact on the community for years to come. Yet, some students are skeptical, and they question whether the roads truly needed to be repaved.

“I don’t think the roads were that bad, if they’re just doing [the construction] to repave the roads I don’t think it’s necessary,” Salitsky said. “They repaved [Route] 27 not that long ago, I remember. It was right in front of my street that they paved, so if that’s the only purpose I think that this is more irritating than good.”

While the road construction may be annoying at the moment, the “end is in sight” as the finishing touches should be put on in about two weeks.

“We’ll come back in, in a couple of weeks at night, and put down what we call the finished course, the nice smooth course of pavement, and at that point everything is flush with the roadway,” Holder said. “Then shortly thereafter, we’ll come in and hire somebody that will do all the striping. They do all of the fog lines at the edge of the road, they do the stop lines, central lines, all of that.”

Holder said that generally, Wayland residents have understood that the construction was going to be disruptive and have not complained very much. However, the biggest complaint from some students was of it being too loud at night.

“The construction can be kind of loud,” Salitsky said. “For example, I know there’s a few houses right where it’s happening, which would be really unfortunate to live there.”

Despite the inconvenience the construction has posed, many students, including Tobin and Salitsky, are hopeful that the construction will have a positive outcome to their community.

“Hopefully Route 27 will be really nice after this is all said and done,” Tobin said. “This is annoying now, but I really think that it will all turn out to be worth it.”

Holder hopes that all construction will be finished by the end of October and is confident that the roads will turn out perfect.

“What I always say to people is to ‘be patient, the final product is going to be worth all of the disruption,” Holder said.