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Costs rise, number of repaved roads falls
YOUNGSTOWN
With costs for petroleum — a key component in asphalt — higher this year, the city’s summer paving project will improve nine fewer streets than last year for about the same price.
This year, parts of 71 streets, primarily in residential neighborhoods, will be paved with the work starting in the second or third week of June, said Charles Shasho, deputy director of the city’s public works department.
The project usually takes 75 days to complete, he said.
“It depends on the weather,” Shasho said. “The weather hasn’t been cooperative lately.”
The paving work will be done by the Shelly Co., the Twinsburg company that submitted the least-expensive proposal at $1,425,842.
The proposal closest in cost came from Dioro Paving, the Girard company that did last year’s street-paving project. Dioro’s proposal was for $1,496,969. Two other companies also submitted proposals.
In 2010, Dioro paved 80 streets for $1,454,408.
Before 2010, Shelly handled the city paving work for four consecutive years.
Most of the money for the paving comes from a federal Community Development Block Grant and the city’s $5 motor-vehicle license tax fund.
A small piece of the cost will come from the city’s water and wastewater budgets because a portion of the project includes grading water valves and manhole covers, and a sewer repair project on Phelps Street between Lincoln and Rayen avenues, Shasho said.
Shasho said he and other public-works employees drive the city’s streets to determine which will be repaved. The streets are rated based on their condition and the amount of traffic they have, he said.
Public works employees meet with city council members to get their input and to find out which streets in each ward receive the most complaints about their quality before making a final list, Shasho said.