– News about Quincy Massachusetts from Quincy Quarry News.

The patch jobs
Quincy Quarry News file photo

Quincy Center unfinished repaving project mystery solved!

Months after inexplicably leaving a couple of asphalt patches in a new concrete sidewalk laid last summer when the adjacent short street that is Saville Avenue in Quincy Center was contemporaneously repaved, the mystery of why the patches has been solved.

Care of the persistent monitoring of the site given the dogged assistance of a Quincy Quarry News Citizen Observer, the Quarry is now able to report that the likely reason for the patches is now apparent: the patches were necessary given not having granite curbstones to build planter boxes last summer.

In any event, as City Hall would surely claim supply chain problems if asked, Quincy Quarry did not bother inquiring.

One planter bed, left center foreground; the other, right background
A Quincy Quarry News exclusive image

At the same time, a close look at the granite planter bed edging stones – which is, unfortunately, less than clear care of the Quarry’s photos – would suggest that the considerable mismatch of patterns in the twelve new planter bed curbstones used may have been leftovers culls from the Hancock Street misalignment project that lingered over several years, ran late and was finally completed five years ago.

Either that or the curbstone vendor just grabbed whatever stones it had on hand to then cut an extra cost custom cut small order of planting bed curbstones.

Regardless of which or otherwise might be the cause of the stone mismatches, the Quarry can only properly further add that completing this project with now needed plantings will only add to both the cost and the time overrun to finally complete the whole of the larger project.

Contractor rolling all sorts of equipment for a quick late fix
A Quincy Quarry News exclusive image

That and who only knows how much in the way of cost overruns were likely imposed given the costs of rolling all manner of equipment to Quincy for but perhaps at most a couple of days of work that could have been done far more efficiently last summer when the rest of the sidewalk was laid.

If, that is, someone had arranged to have the planter curbstones on hand and at the ready months ago or – more reasonably – decided that going with the granite-lined planter beds was yet another frivolous koched-up waste of taxpayers’ money.

In any event, Quincy Quarry’s ever-growing legions of loyal readers can count on it to monitor these new and arguably superfluous planter boxes as regards if and when they might eventually see plants.

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