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If you wanna take a last nostalgic drive or walk across the Rockland Street bridge in Wellesley, you better hurry. It’s closing down by this Friday, Jan. 6 Jan. 13, according to new info from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (What could possibly go wrong with doing on on Friday the 13th?).

The bridge, which crosses high above the railroad tracks, is expected to be destroyed next week and be replaced by September under a $1.9 million construction contract. A temporary bridge that’s already being constructed will allow for pedestrian traffic while the new permanent bridge is being built. The new bridge deck will be raised 5.2 inches to provide a 17-foot 9-inch clearance over the RR tracks. The bridge deck will widened by 4 feet to a total of 24.5 feet for vehicles and two 6-foot sidewalks will be included.

This all of course means the Kingsbury Street bridge is going to get real busy.

RELATED: Wellesley’s new and improved Cedar Street bridge

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The hardest working people in Wellesley? Those guys who painstakingly have been sprucing up the Great Wall of Wellesley along the Hunnewell properties on Washington Street/Rte. 16.

I stopped and pestered one of the stone masons the other day who said he’d been on the job for about two months. I couldn’t get the man, crouched down next to the wall with his tools and a few bags of cement, to estimate when the “Hunne-Wall” job would be done. It looks as though the entire wall stretches about a half mile.

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Cluster subdivision development meeting

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Wellesley’s Fuller Brook Park Coordinating Committee, which is working with the town’s Natural Resources Commission on the multi-year Fuller Brook Park Improvement Project, might be calling on some real live goats to help with the job in years to come.

The park project, for which the committee will seek funding approval at next month’s Town Meeting, addresses 3 issues: a deteriorating and hodgepodge path (map of park here), the stream quality and invasive vegetation.

It’s the vegetation part where goats could come in handy, according to Janet Hartke Bowser, director of the town’s Natural Resources Commission, who has been doing the rounds at various town boards and committees to apprise them of the latest plans and funding details. She says goats could help rid the park of invasives like Japanese Knotweed and poison ivy.

Bringing in goats is just an idea being kicked around, not a done deal by far.. But the chemical-free approach is one that has worked in other communities, including Portland, Ore., and Boise, Idaho. Outfits such as Eco-Goats have popped up to serve this growing need for grazers.

If you haven’t been on the path in recent weeks, take note that DPW vehicles are tearing up a couple of sections between the State Street and Hunnewell Elementary School to put in sample path material that is hard when dry and softer when wet to see how it holds up, how plowable it is, etc.  (the sample I saw looked/felt kind of like concrete). Two different widths of path will be tested as well. The town plans to have volunteers man the paths at some point to survey users about how they like the materials, widths, etc.

(For more on the park project, check out a Globe report that sums up the latest on final design phase funding, a good chunk of which is expected to come via the Community Preservation Committee …additional funding for the actual construction phase will likely be cause for a debt exclusion that town residents will need to OK). Completion of the entire project could still be 5 years away.

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Washington Street will be closed to all traffic from Walnut Street to the Newton line starting at 10 PM on Monday and Tuesday, October 17 and 18th.  The road will re-open by 5 AM for normal traffic and will be fully open during the day.

Construction crews will be working on Washington Street in the area of Mica Lane (Lower Falls Square).  Crews will be relocating a cross walk and adding a curb extension.  This work requires complete shutdown of the road in the area.

Traffic traveling eastbound on Washington Street will be detoured down Walnut Street and back out to Washington Street in Newton.  Traffic traveling westbound on Washington Street will be detoured in Newton to Walnut Street in Wellesley, and back on to Washington Street.  Local traffic will be granted access to the area as needed.

Wellesley Police and Newton Police officers will be on scene to assist with traffic management.  The detour will be fully marked.  Due to the light volume of traffic, no significant delays are expected.

Any changes or delays will be sent out and posted on our website at www.WellesleyPolice.com.

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Boston Globe architecture writer Robert Campbell can barely contain himself in his review of Wellesley’s Temple Beth Elohim, which he calls “the best new house of worship to have been built in the Boston area in decades.” In his review, he also shares the back story on how temple members traveled to Israel with architect  William Rawn (his firm also did the Glavin Family Chapel at Babson) to steep themselves in architecture and Jewish culture, respectively. The $25M temple, at 10 Bethel Rd.,  features lots of glass, a tree-filled courtyard and sliding walls that ensure the building never feels to empty or jam-packed.

RELATED: Temple Beth Elohim, Wellesley’s other big construction project

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