Protecting the Shoreline While Re-Opening a Closed Road
The Town of Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts engaged our engineers to design a replacement for several deteriorated slope and shoreline protection structures which had near East Chop Drive. Tighe & Bond is serving as the prime engineer with a team, including Woods Hole Group, Blakelee Arpaia Chapman, and Coastal Engineering Co., Inc. (prior to the firm’s acquisition by Tighe & Bond).
The roadway runs along the northeast shoreline of East Chop Bluff (the Bluff). The roadway sits atop a 30-LF to 50-LF-high sand slope protected at the toe by a failing timber bulkhead and stone revetment. Approximately half a mile of East Chop Drive has been closed for almost 10 years due to deterioration of the slope and shoreline protection that supports the roadway. The Town has received grant funding from the FEMA Pre-Disaster Mitigation Program, as well as the State of Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA), to reconstruct the shoreline protection structures.
To date, the survey, subsurface investigation, and wave climatology study have been completed. Tighe & Bond has submitted the Basis of Design report to the Town. The community outreach effort has begun with a presentation to the neighborhood association and an online survey to solicit feedback from the community. The design was completed at the end of 2023 with construction beginning in early 2024 and ending in mid 2025.
The roadway will be reopened to the public, and residents will have a new, ADA accessible pathway to access the water.
Services Snapshot
Tighe & Bond is providing the Town of Oak Bluffs with design, bid, and construction phase services in support of this project. The scope of work includes topographic and bathymetric survey, subsurface investigation, wave climatology study, constructability review, regulatory approval revisions, preliminary and final design, construction administration, community outreach, and grant administration.
