Streets

"Chicken Street" Kabul. That is the local name for the street because of the live birds for the meat markets.

On May 27th I wrote about "Toasters and Roads" deploring the atrocious state of Plainfield's streets. I did not expect any noticeable response , and continue to run the obstacle course when I drive downtown on Watchung Ave.

For the past few years the potholes have been a prominent year round feature of Plainfield's streets. All area communities seem to be afflicted with this problem. None, however, have approached the level of Plainfield's.

Heavily traveled Leland and Watchung Avenues are not only a civic disgrace but a danger to property and life. There is probably not one street in Plainfield without unrepaired damage. How many times has the city been responsible for damaged tires, wheels or axles?

Much of the problem has resulted from the substandard street closure repairs performed by contractors and utilities after "opening the street". Is there any regulation specifying the standard for these road closures? If so is there ever any inspection to make sure those patches meet required standards? Are records kept, and violators fined? Are contractors and utilities required to post a performance bond before jackhammering the street?

It is a fact that although we are now in the 4th year of a 6 year plan adopted by the Plainfield Council there has been no visible improvement. Many of the roads that were to be repaired are still an adventure to drive on.

According to the Plan the estimate costs for some of the streets such as Kensington in 2006 was $$672,039.50. for Evergreen in 2006 was $413,236.89 and for Thornton in 2007 was $199,853.89. Why have they not been touched? Bad planning or diversion of funds could be an answer.

Were funds budget for and appropriated for these and the other streets in the plan? How much of the recent bond issues were designated for street resurfacing? What funds were supposed to come from grants ? Were they ever applied for? If received what happened to the money? How much of the estimated cost have been allocated and paid for preliminarily design and engineering costs? Will this be like the Woodland Ave fiasco which took years to complete and within a decade is deteriorating?

And what is happening to pothole repairs. That appears to be a haphazard, willy-nilly project. When and where it occurs one or two may be filled , but others adjacent are left untouched. Is the problem lack of personnel or lack of supervision or poor budgeting?Why have not early potholes around manhole covers filled before the pavement was completely compromised?

Over a month ago I called the Council's attention to Leland Ave south of 7th Street. I assume since there is a $1,061,869.43 estimate for total resurfacing that street from city line to city line on the plan for 2008, that the street will be allowed to deteriorate so that by the time this street is acted upon probably 2012, it will merit complete reconstruction. If proper maintenance were to be done, perhaps there would be no need for such an expensive outlay.

Some time ago ,if my memory is still intact, cracks in the asphalt pavement were routinely filled with hot tar. Every street has long lengthwise cracks in the surface that are the site of early disintegration of the pavement. These cracks occur where adjacent strips of new pavement are laid down and probably result from incomplete bonding of the two segments. It has been decades since this has been done here in Plainfield and the surrounding communities. Was the practice discontinued because it failed to save the pavements, or because of municipal budget cutbacks? Or was it stopped since there seems to be state grants for re pavement and thus no incentive for protective maintenance? I am sure that this was a combination of both.



The people deserve answers.

Don't overlook the individual blogs that Councilmen Burney and Storch occasionally post and keep us informed about local governmental actions. How else would we learn that Kensington Ave. was scheduled according to the "6 YEAR CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PLAN" to be reconstructed in 2006. What happened to the $440,000.00 budgeted for that job?