By Jim O'Sullivan

Construction and maintenance projects and back-to-school bus traffic have helped clog Dorchester roads, with blocked-off streets mandating circuitous detours and vexing neighborhood drivers.

Bill Walczak was one of them last Friday. Walczak, a Savin Hill resident and the executive director of the Codman Square Health Center, used his time trapped in traffic to call the offices of the Reporter and record his odyssey.

The result was a voicemail narrative of the kind of bob-and-weave travel that is permitted by a working knowledge of neighborhood streets, but also demanded by enough road blocks to leave the usually-articulate Walczak spluttering in high-pitched tones of incredulity: "This is outrageous!"

While "Where's Walczak?" might have kept Reporter staff entertained, the thick congestion on Dorchester streets has locals trying to pick their way across the neighborhood, as well as those passing through who might think Dorchester an alternative to highway traffic, leaning on their horns in frustration.

BTD Commissioner Andrea d'Amato declined to be interviewed for this story.

A Boston Water and Sewer Commission (BWSC) water separation project tears up what the Boston Transportation Department (BTD) estimates is 60 percent of the neighborhood roads, and is likely to last into 2004.

Two journeys along Dorchester's title thoroughfare tested the traffic woes. Dorchester Avenue, the neighborhood's north-south spine, stretches 3.4 miles from its southern intersection with Adams St., on the Milton border, to its intersection with Columbia Rd., before heading into Andrew Square and South Boston.

Beginning at 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, with BWSC projects going full-bore but little school bus or commuter traffic, a northbound drive took 21 minutes, an average speed of 9.7 miles per hour. The thickest pockets of back-up occurred between Greenwich St. and Linden St., between Hancock St. and Dewar St., and between Mayfield St. and Taft St.

A southbound drive beginning at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, with BWSC projects shut down for the day but with commuter traffic wending out of the city, lasted 18 minutes, an average speed of 11.3 m.p.h.

Expressly designed to cut down on pollution in Dorchester Bay and Boston Harbor by reducing sewer overflow, the BWSC project separates the currently cohabitating flows of sewage and stormwater. While much of the congestion occures along the Avenue, Walczak's reports from the field last week reflected little recourse for drivers trying to dodge Dot Ave. snarls. Walczak figured that simultaneously closed were parts of main drags Adams St., Geneva Ave., Park St. at the intersection of Waldeck St., Harvard St., and Washington St.

The problem, say Walczak and others, among them City Hall personnel, is that no one is supervising the various shutdowns.

Calling local traffic "a nightmare," Dorchester City Councillor Charles Yancey called for improved scheduling and planning of projects, more adequate signage, and better oversight from City Hall.

Dick Loring, the BTD engineer responsible for permitting construction projects, said traffic patterns changing to reflect construction projects is natural, and added, "We have not heard any specific complaints about any particular project," a claim backed by another transportation official.

Loring said the Roper Bridge, the bridge on Adams St. linking Dorchester and Milton in Lower Mills, may see its traffic flow reversed, expediting traffic out of the city, but "exacerbating" the detour.

Loring said the first few days of school traditionally translate into citywide traffic problems.

"Traffic patterns ramp up for a certain period of time and then they level off," Loring said.

"If you could live in an ideal world, and not have to worry about the impact to local businesses, you'd be eliminating parking on Dot Avenue," Loring said. "I'm not advocating that in any way, shape, or form."

Another lingering concern for civic activists is the pending reconstruction of three Dorchester Red Line stations, still on track- according to T officials- to begin by year's end. Loring said that mitigation efforts are underway to make sure that BWSC work does not conflict with work around the stations. Still unclear is how the already strained Avenue will handle the injection of even more traffic, as MBTA passengers are shuttled in buses during station shut-downs.

Local businesses are likely to suffer when Savin Hill's Crescent Ave. is shut down, making truck deliveries more difficult in a traffic tangle near Patty's Pantry, where Sydney St. has been shut off.

"Under no circumstances should they take a community like Dorchester and dig up so many roads at the same time," Walczak said, calling it the worst neighborhood traffic in 25 years.

"It's a lesson for City Hall that they need to find someone who can coordinate and not issue so many permits that shuts down so many main streets."