On Saturday, January 25, the Acton Department of Public Works (DPW) opened its doors and driveways to the public for a series of tours. The tours, led by several DPW employees, allowed Acton residents to get a peek at what goes on behind the scenes to keep the streets and sidewalks plowed, the grass mowed, downed trees removed, and many other tasks that keep Acton green, drivable, and walkable.
The large main DPW building houses a portion of the town’s equipment, including work trucks, dump trucks, skid steers, and front-end loaders. The building, which was erected around 1970 from unreinforced concrete blocks, was built when Acton had a much smaller population and far fewer roads. Select Board member and retired Acton tree warden Dean Charter noted that with the current building, there is a possibility of “structural failure in a seismic event. Even a little shake could be catastrophic.”
As the town has added trucks and other specialized tools over the years, the current building no longer holds all of the equipment. Each piece of equipment that is housed inside has a specific location; if one of the equipment operators needs a truck that’s towards the back, then they first need to move all of the equipment that is in the way.
Getting all of the vehicles in and out of the garage is like a daily game of Tetris. Each vehicle has a location, and staff needs to get them all out, and then back in, in order. You can see what happens every day on YouTube, here: The daily vehicle move (30 minutes in 27 seconds).
The Town still owns and uses several circa-1987 large Mack trucks. Operations Superintendent Carl Maria noted that the trucks are older than many of the employees. The mechanics maintain these trucks, along with all of the town’s DPW equipment, police cars, and community transportation vans in the three-bay garage.
As part of the tour, we saw that smaller equipment, including lawn mowers, is stored on a crowded loft. Jason Kidder, assistant operations superintendent, noted that some of the items on the second floor are seasonal, and need to be swapped out every spring and fall. Large items are moved up and down with a forklift.
Not all of the equipment required to maintain Acton’s roads, cemeteries, and public spaces fits in the DPW main building. Over the years, DPW employees have created temporary structures to provide shelter from the worst of weather for some of the equipment. The structures include a large tent and several repurposed shipping containers. The equipment that either lives outdoors or under makeshift tents includes a front end loader, an excavator, a backhoe, a catch basin truck, street sweepers, and sidewalk tractors.
Carl Maria and Jason Kidder noted that many of the vehicles owned by the DPW are expensive, many costing more than $200,000 each. They said that storing them outdoors all year round shortens the useful lifespan of equipment and requires more maintenance.
Ryan Hunt, Acton’s tree warden and the foreman for the trees and grounds staff, talked about Acton’s first bucket truck, which lives under a canopy next to one of the auxiliary buildings. He noted that just between the bucket truck and the wood chipper, he has half a million dollars worth of equipment exposed to the elements.The bucket truck allows the DPW to take on tasks such as changing high light bulbs (such as at the train station) that Acton used to contract out.
Stephen Knight and his dad, Andrew Knight both took part in the tour. Stephen thought the tour was interesting and was impressed by both the number and types of trucks that the town owns.
The DPW open house is part of a series of public meetings by the DPW and the Public Works Facility Building Committee before this year’s Town Meeting. At last year’s Town Meeting, based on the recommendation of a study committee, the town approved $1.225 million dollars for the design of a new facility. This year, the town will request a substantially larger amount (likely over $40 million) in a debt exclusion override to actually build the new facility. Based on comments at public meetings to date, some of Acton’s residents are very concerned about adding any additional tax burden to the town, while others are concerned about difficulties faced by town employees and about keeping the town’s expensive equipment in good order.
If you missed this live tour, but would like to see what the Department of Public Works does, you can take a video tour of the DPW yard that was filmed on April 1, 2023 (no fooling!).
Miriam Lezak is an associate editor at the Acton Exchange.