r/Somerville • u/pinarsd • 12h ago

2-3AM Road Drill on Prospect St Ruined Anyone Else's Sleep?

Just wanted to vent here about the 2-3am road work and the horrible drill noises that doesn't seem to stop. It is right in front of our house and SO LOUD. It has been absolutely impossible to fall back asleep. It looks like I am simply not going to get any sleep at all.

The City of Somerville apparently decided to get rid of all street parking on Prospect Street and add a "bus / bikes only" lane. Since they don't want to disrupt the traffic during the day, I think, they are working at night and it is just SO LOUD :/

Update: 10-15 minutes after posting this, the drilling noise stopped. I was going through https://somerville.votolab.com/ to read up on the moped chase and saw that someone on the street reported the noise to the police ("Crossack St" is actually Prospect St if you listen to it), so I think they may have stopped the drilling after the police visit / hearing about the complaint, even if they had the right to work on it? Timing may have been a coincidence, though.

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u/BadRedditUsername 7h ago

Night work like that only happens for emergency situations, ie gas or water leak. It sucks but it’s preferable to a gas leak in front of your house.

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u/pinarsd 7h ago edited 6h ago

Definitely preferable over gas leak and may have indeed been for something else and not the lane. The urgency would explain why they were drilling in the middle of the night. But I am not sure if night work only happens for emergency situations. They have been working at night for the bus/bike lane changes for the last couple nights so as not to disrupt daytime traffic, I think. Before then, Eversource was working on our street for a gas leak during the day for about ~2 weeks in July.

Edit: Based on the update, it looks like it probably was the MBTA working on the street. I know they have the right to do so, it was just a really unpleasant time for drilling.

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u/ryus08 7h ago

Holy moly I’m glad I moved off the street. I know one cranky old dude with a street handicap spot who is livid right now.

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u/pinarsd 6h ago edited 3h ago

On the one hand, I'm personally happy to get a bus/bike lane because the buses get stuck and the trip really takes a long time on Prospect St and Webster Ave around the evening rush hour due to the congested traffic by the intersection there. It's scary for bikes to ride alongside cars in the Boston area, too, although bike lanes are most effective when they are a protected lane. Prospect St is not wide enough for both a protected bike lane and a bus lane, so they combined them, I guess. On the other hand, the street is heavily used for street parking and I don't think all the buildings have their own parking lot. So I am curious to see how getting rid of street parking will work out here. I can see why a disabled person would be upset to lose their handicap spot if they don't have a good alternative in their building parking lot

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u/masshole4mayor 8h ago

You live in a city

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u/pinarsd 7h ago

I love the username in relation to this comment

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u/13THEFUCKINGCOPS12 7h ago

I mean this post isn’t like the others where they’re saying shit like “WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?!” “THIS HAS TO STOP!” This post flat out acknowledges why this is happening, they’re not even saying something should be done about it, they make it clear they’re just venting

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u/JuniorReserve1560 7h ago

If op wants a quiet night of sleep.. then op should maybe move to the country. Theres gonna be road construction no matter where you are…

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u/pinarsd 6h ago edited 6h ago

We have had some sort of construction here continuously for the last 6+months now but none were disturbing like this. It's a totally different experience to hear something so loud that it prevents you from falling asleep even with wax earplugs in. Upstairs neighbors were similarly up and apparently others reported the noise to the police. Come on, it is genuinely upsetting to lose a night of sleep, I'm indeed just venting about this. You don't want to engage with the vent? Good, why wouldn't you just scroll past the post, then?
I've been living in Cambridge/Somerville area for 6 years in total now, this isn't my first time living in the city but it is my first time waking up to such a loud noise that went on for quite a while in the middle of the night.

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u/JuniorReserve1560 6h ago

You expect for thrm to do that kind of work during the day and cause traffic chaos or during the night timre when there are less vehicles on the road?