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Youngstown’s street paving project will start in mid-June
YOUNGSTOWN
When turning from Mahoning Avenue onto Halls Heights Avenue on the West Side, it’s impossible not to notice the road’s poor condition.
Numerous bricks below the asphalt are easily visible on Halls Heights.
Then a few feet farther south, there is no asphalt. The road is brick all the way past Hillsdale Avenue until it dead ends into Mill Creek Park.
“If you’re not feeling well, it’s a bad drive,” said Tonya Latimer, who has lived on Halls Heights for the past six years.
“I have a bad back, and I feel pain when I drive on my road. Also, the bricks took the muffler off my car. I’d rather walk to Mahoning Avenue than drive it. Even the kids have been hurt on their bicycles on this street.”
She described driving on Halls Heights as being on “a roller coaster. It’s ridiculous.”
So when told the entire stretch of Halls Heights from Mahoning to the dead end is on the city’s list of neighborhood streets being repaved, Latimer could hardly contain her excitement.
“Oh my God,” she said. “Wow! I thought I’d never see it get done.”
The city’s neighborhood street- paving program will begin in a few weeks and take up to 75 days to complete, said Charles Shasho, deputy director of the public-works department. For the third straight year, RT Vernal Paving & Excavating of North Lima will do the paving work. The company submitted the lowest proposal at $1,213,800.
Thomas Fok & Associates Inc. of Austintown will handle the project’s inspection and construction administration for the city for $69,930.
The city primarily pays for the paving work from its federal Community Development Block Grant and its motor-vehicle license-tax fund.
Sections of 62 streets throughout the city will be done this year. A more accurate listing of how much work is being done is to use lane miles, which is 1 mile long and 12 feet wide, Shasho said. That’s because when it comes to neighborhood paving work, the sections of streets are different, he said.
This year, 21 lane miles will be done. That’s the least amount of lane miles – the same amount was done in 2013 – for the city going back at least 15 years.
The biggest problem, Shasho said, is the expense of asphalt. That’s the result of the increased cost of petroleum, a key component of asphalt, he said. Asphalt cost $75.50 per cubic yard in 2001 when the city had 32 lane miles paved for $922,079. The cost is now $132 per cubic yard.
The city determines which roads will be paved by first getting lists from city council members and complaints from people, Shasho said. Then, public-works department workers drive those streets and score them based on the severity and frequency of potholes and cracks, and the general conditions of the roads, he said.
“We also look at how many houses are affected and the number of vehicles drive on the roads,” Shasho said. “We look at traffic volume and the condition of the road.”
Two sections of the South Side’s Volney Road – from Woodford to Sherwood avenues, and from Sherwood to Winona Drive – also are on the city’s paving list.
The street, which winds in certain sections, has several large potholes.
“It is pretty bad; I had to get a new rim on a tire after hitting a pothole,” said Michael Hopkins, who lives on Volney Road between Woodford and Sherwood. “Besides the potholes, there’s a lot of loose gravel so whenever you drive, it kicks it up and hits the car. I’ve been wondering if they were going to do something about the road. It’s been bad for so long, and there was no patching done at all after this winter. I’m glad they’re fixing it.”
Once the road is paved, Hopkins said, “I might get a skateboard.”
Also on the South Side, the city is having two sections of Kiwatha Road – from Glenwood Avenue to Anoka Lane, and from Anoka Lane to Cohasset Drive – paved. Several large well-kept homes are on one side of the street with Mill Creek Park on the other side. Though there are some potholes on the road, other roads are in worse condition, such as Almyra Avenue, which is on the other side of Glenwood Avenue from Kiwatha. Almyra has numerous vacant houses and lots.
“While there’s not as many potholes [on Kiwatha] as some other roads, it needs to be maintained because it’s a well-traveled road,” Shasho said.
Three sections of Southern Boulevard, also a well-traveled road but with several rundown or abandoned houses and commercial structures, are being paved.
That includes Market Street to East Philadelphia Avenue, Hilton to Lucius avenues, and Maple Drive to Midlothian Boulevard.
The worst parts of those roads are at East Philadelphia and Lucius, though most of the other sections appear to be in decent shape.