With paving main streets and avenues in Jersey City nearly completed, Mayor Glenn Cunningham has unveiled a four-phase plan to pave and repair local streets in the inner cities that have been neglected for more than a decade.
“While it is essential to pave the major roads, it’s just as important to improve the roads in our neighborhoods,” Cunningham said last week. Based on City Council recommendations, the Department of Public Works has assembled a list of 38 streets in dire need of repairs. The paving process has already begun, beginning with Wegman Parkway in Ward F.
“We’re paying more attention to the infrastructure of our cities,” Cunningham said. As part of the first phase of the plan, a master list was assembled. Some of the other streets scheduled for repair include McAdoo Avenue, Pavonia Avenue, Belvidere Avenue, Chopin Court, Bayside Terrace.
“[The previous administration] didn’t do local streets,” said Ron Buonacore, director of the Department of Public Works. “For two years, they just did main streets. They just wanted access routes.” Getting an early start on the project, the entire renovation should be completed by the end of the summer, officials said.
Tilcon, a private company that won the bid for the project, is responsible for crushing up the street and paving a new one. Paid for through a capital bond, the project is estimated to cost $850,000, according to Buonacore. Whereas main roads often take a few months to complete, Buonacore said that the local streets take no more than a week. “They’ll try to mill one day and pave the next,” Buonacore said. “We’re not doing lengthy blocks. No concrete involved. Just street work.”
The DPW oversees the project by sending out inspectors to make sure the work is done properly. According to Buonacore, the city had paved the streets with its own equipment 25 years ago. The cost of maintaining the equipment, however, eventually led to hiring private firms.
Because of the work involved with street paving, Buonacore warns residents to pay heed to “No Parking” signs. Those who do not, Buonacore said, are bound to be towed.
“Residents should obey the no parking signs, because they’ll get towed,” Buonacore said. “You can’t pave the streets with a few cars there. They have to obey the signs and follow directions. It makes everything much easier.”
As the work on local streets gets started, repairs on major roads continue. Those roads have largely been funded through grants from the state Department of Transportation. Nearly completed roads include Summit Avenue, Palisade Avenue, Bergen Avenue, Secaucus Road, Newark Avenue Van Nostrand Avenue and Montgomery Avenue. Finishing those major roads constitute the third phase of the mayor’s plan. The city was also able to obtain grants to repair roads that were deemed secondary thoroughfares, such as Sip Avenue, Manhattan Avenue, and Erie Street. Those roads will serve as the second phase of the mayor’s plan.
The final stage, expected to be completed by 2003, involves re-paving Martin Luther King Drive between Communipaw and McAdoo Avenues.
Now that roads are being restored to new conditions, Cunningham said that the DPW will monitor any activity to ensure that those streets are not abused by private companies doing construction in the area. For example, Cunningham said, companies like PSE&G often rip up the ground to do electrical work and fail to bring the road back to its original condition. In the future, he added, companies would be held responsible for the cost of repairs if their work has damaged any city streets.