In addition to being an urban parkway with trees and greenspace, Fresh Pond Parkway is a major commuting artery on the west side of the City of Cambridge, Massachusetts, carrying hundreds of cars per hour. Utilizing engineers from across the company, Kleinfelder designed and oversaw construction of this $15 million sewer separation, stormwater management, and surface improvements project.

Cleaning Up Local Waterways

The Fresh Pond Parkway project was part of a city wide sewer separation and stormwater management program. The City agreed to undertake this program on behalf of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority as part of court-ordered Boston Harbor Clean up measures. The program was designed to reduce the discharge of untreated sewage from combined sewer overflows to local waterways and enabled upstream sewer separation in the future.

Managing a Multi-Phase Project

The sewer separation and stormwater management work consisted of 2,000 linear feet of new and rehabilitated sanitary sewer pipe and storm drain pipes varying in size from 24″diameter to 4’x12′ box culverts. It included construction of several storm drain and sanitary sewer flush vaults, as well as a new pump station. This resulted in storm drainage flowing into a wetland basin and treated prior to entering the nearby Little River. The surface enhancement construction consisted of full-depth roadway reconstruction, new pavement and line striping, curbing and sidewalks, street lighting and traffic signals, bike paths, and landscaping. We also designed and conducted the relocation and replacement of major utilities throughout the project.

Project Results

Leveraging its companywide resources and multi-disciplinary expertise, Kleinfelder enabled the City of Cambridge meet its commitment to help clean up local waterways. Our design reduced the combined sewage overflow that was occurring during heavy rainstorms and overall flooding of city streets and household basements. Furthermore, we successfully managed traffic during construction to ensure project and public safety.

Project Details

Location:
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Owner:
City of Cambridge