Quoted Text

SCHENECTADY
Quicker, cheaper road fixes roll along
City to resurface 10 miles during a month of hot work
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

    In the next four weeks, more streets will be paved in Schenectady than have been rebuilt in the last six years.
    Nearly 10 miles of roadway will be repaved, including sections of most of the city’s main streets. All of them will receive a new type of paving rehab that will not last as long but costs far less and is quicker. That’s why the city is able to pave so much more than normal.
    The city will also use the traditional repaving method to replace roads that have fallen into such disrepair that the new system won’t work. A mile of roads, including the badly crumbling Seward Place, will be completely removed and replaced at a cost of $1.6 million. Ten miles of roads under the new program will cost approximately $1.6 million.
    But that’s not the only advantage. While it will take weeks to rebuild just the few blocks of Seward Place, the same distance on Nott Street was redone in half a day using the new method.
    On Thursday, Highway Rehab Corp. started work on Nott Street, where they will rejuvenate the pavement from Rosa Road to the city line. The job took so little time that the crew took a two-hour break Friday, lest they finish the area before a press conference called to highlight the new program.
    “I was afraid we’d be done and gone from here before it started,” explained Terry Lucey, regional sales representative. “So we’re waiting.”
    After Nott, much of Union Street, Michigan Avenue and Congress Street will also be replaced, along with sections of 18 other streets.
    Kings Road, which was the subject of a grassroots protest from residents who lined the street with signs asking trucks to slow down to “save” the deteriorating road, is on the list.
    But most side-streets didn’t make the cut, even though City Engineer Paul Cassillo said many of them are in very bad condition. He had to prioritize, he said, and do the streets with the heaviest traffi c fi rst.
    Doing 10 miles of pavement this summer will help — but Cassillo said there’s a long way to go. About 35 miles of main streets are in “poor condition,” he said after inspecting the city’s streets this spring. The ones in the worst condition made it onto his list — but the rest need to be replaced soon.
    Lucey agreed, saying that the city’s roads are among the worst he’s driven in the entire state.
    “On a scale from one to 10, with 10 being worst, Schenectady roads I’ve driven are 8 to 9,” he said. “They’re very poor — excellent candidates, but very poor condition.”
    When Cassillo proposed trying a new method to pave the streets more quickly, he told the City Council it could not afford to wait. “I would estimate in three to five years, 40 percent of the city’s roads will be bad,” he said.
    The city should have replaced those roads long ago, on a far more aggressive schedule, he said, criticizing years of restricted budgeting that allowed for only about two miles of repaving each summer. ....................>>>>.........................>>>>...............http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r01101&AppName=1

Now the city is shopping at Walmart?

We bought Christmas lights probably a decade ago from Walmart to put in the bushes on each end of our front landscaping, WOW, They were 70 somethig cents per box if I remember.  HA, we replaced them all the following year.  But it was inexpensive, we bought more the following year to put on more bushes.   And again, one year they lasted.  After 4 years of junk that didn't last, we searched ebay and we've found some older style stuff that was about 30 years old, still working then, still works now.  We also bought some good qualiity sstuff at Hewitts.  It's all still working.

How long is the crap the city is using going to last?

Of course, they are spending little money on the necessities in the city so they can still give tax dollars to the rich downtown, which just causes higher taxes which causes more people to leave the city, and there is no end in sight

You get what you pay for, cheap isn't always the best way to go." All of them will receive a new type of paving rehab that will not last as long but costs far less and is quicker." That statement is right out of the article so the city already knows that the roads will fall apart in a few years.

And FYI - Kelton Ave, the street that the Gazette profiled the expensive sewer repair on, that could not be repaved in the winter due to well, it being winter and no asphalt being available...

Still not paved.

And I think that needs a lot more than re-surfacing.

The road is a mess, I won't travel it due to the damage from uneven road surfaces and gravel / stones.  I understand it being a mess from the repair, but they've known it needs to be done for like 6+ months, so why it isn't done yet is astonishing to me.

The democrap committee meeting was
At a confluence
And someone with influence
Overheard talk of Ron Severe.

With Ten Miles of Bad Road as the theme
They came up with this scheme
Good thing good ol' Ron was there

Quoted from JackBauer

And FYI - Kelton Ave, the street that the Gazette profiled the expensive sewer repair on, that could not be repaved in the winter due to well, it being winter and no asphalt being available...

Still not paved.

And I think that needs a lot more than re-surfacing.

The road is a mess, I won't travel it due to the damage from uneven road surfaces and gravel / stones.  I understand it being a mess from the repair, but they've known it needs to be done for like 6+ months, so why it isn't done yet is astonishing to me.

Perhaps DV, who claims to go to city hall so often, for sure he can tell us why the road hasn't been paved, why it is such a mess.

Hell DV, probably thinks is great to pave roads cheap when the city even says it won't last long.   DV thinks its better to spend money in handouts to the well heeled political dem socalist cronies than to provide good roads for the residents who live neighborhoods.   RIght DV????   The people that live in the neighborhoods are treated like dirt and robbed of their hard earned money and then when they can't fix up their homes (because their money goes to the millionaires downtown) then the city slaps them with all kinds of financial penalties.   But it's a good thing to rob from the homeowners and exempt the political cronies from taxes, huh

MC -- go f*** yourself.

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Editorial: With new process, Schenectady may have turned corner on its roads
Monday, August 8, 2011

In a March 18 editorial, we asked “What is Schenectady going to do about its roads?” At the time, they were in pitiful shape, full of potholes, cracks and bumps, and fast getting worse. Today, there’s a noticeable improvement.
We don’t take credit for this, especially since none of our proposed remedies included the one that has made the difference. Most of the credit must go to City Engineer Paul Cassillo, the man who recommended a new, cheaper approach that allows the city to repave more roads. The rest of the credit goes to Acting Mayor Gary McCarthy and the City Council, who supported him and gave him the money to make it happen.
For years Schenectady has starved its road maintenance fund and let its roads deteriorate, repaving only a few miles (out of the 145 total paved miles) per year. The main reason was the city’s budget problems and hesitancy to raise taxes, but a compounding factor was its ill-advised policy of putting in expensive granite curbs and concrete sidewalks every time it repaved a road. Schenectady is a walkable city, and the city should encourage and even help homeowners to fix their sidewalks (which are their legal responsibility). But it can’t afford to redo everyone’s, including those that are in decent shape — especially when it is done instead of fixing roads..........................>>>>......................>>>>................http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2011/aug/08/0808_edit1/

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Editorial: With new process, Schenectady may have turned corner on its roads
Monday, August 8, 2011

In a March 18 editorial, we asked “What is Schenectady going to do about its roads?” At the time, they were in pitiful shape, full of potholes, cracks and bumps, and fast getting worse. Today, there’s a noticeable improvement.
We don’t take credit for this, especially since none of our proposed remedies included the one that has made the difference. Most of the credit must go to City Engineer Paul Cassillo, the man who recommended a new, cheaper approach that allows the city to repave more roads. The rest of the credit goes to Acting Mayor Gary McCarthy and the City Council, who supported him and gave him the money to make it happen.
For years Schenectady has starved its road maintenance fund and let its roads deteriorate, repaving only a few miles (out of the 145 total paved miles) per year. The main reason was the city’s budget problems and hesitancy to raise taxes, but a compounding factor was its ill-advised policy of putting in expensive granite curbs and concrete sidewalks every time it repaved a road. Schenectady is a walkable city, and the city should encourage and even help homeowners to fix their sidewalks (which are their legal responsibility). But it can’t afford to redo everyone’s, including those that are in decent shape — especially when it is done instead of fixing roads..........................>>>>......................>>>>................http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2011/aug/08/0808_edit1/

They need to quit using that granite curbing. It is causing problems everywhere it is used.
I noticed that the new pavement job along Central Avenue in Albany is failing already. I wonder if that was the same quick fix method?
I don't see how a newspaper can credit the people who neglected their duties and let the roads go in the first place with fixing the road problem. More likely it is a last ditch effort to secure the votes of the dumbest of the dumb who might still vote for them so they can hold on to their jobs.

This is an election year, the roads will look nice and residents will think that their elected officials are doing something but as many of us who have had their roads resurfaced with this quick inexpensive can attest the roads will not last very long. You get what you pay for.

Quoted from Madam X

I don't see how a newspaper can credit the people who neglected their duties and let the roads go in the first place with fixing the road problem. More likely it is a last ditch effort to secure the votes of the dumbest of the dumb who might still vote for them so they can hold on to their jobs.

Especially McCarthy who sat like a lump on a log rubber stamping every idiotic spending idea. He actually voted no on on one budget because he wanted HIGHER taxes.

     Unfortunately there is a huge moron vote in the City. They are concerned about Roger Hull because he was never a public employee lob and was a successful administrator. According to experts this quick top will not survive a winter. It is what it is. A way to fool some City idiots into voting for the working together DEM morons one more time. 35 straight years isn't enough?

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SCHENECTADY
City to keep focus on repaving roads, not rebuilding sidewalks
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter
Reach Gazette reporter Kathleen Moore at 395-3120 or moore@dailygazette.com.

    Buoyed by the strong positive reaction to this year’s paving, the City Council appears ready to continue the program next year, even though it means the city will not be able to rebuild sidewalks.
    Council members were hesitant to approve the new paving plan this year because the $3 million budget included money that had been intended for sidewalks.
    Acting Mayor Gary McCarthy persuaded the council to put roads above sidewalks, and the city rebuilt almost none of its sidewalks this year.
    Now, council members are believers. At a budget committee meeting, they said they had gotten so much praise from residents about the 9.5 miles of new roads that they want to continue the program next year.
    City Engineer Paul Cassillo’s proposed budget calls for paving 10 to 13 miles of road next year, mostly using the new hot-recycling method.
    The city would hire a crew to use a series of special machines that heat the pavement until it begins to melt, pour in new oil to restore the pavement’s flexibility, mix it together and smooth it into a new surface. Unlike traditional paving, the work takes less than a day per street. However, the pavement has a shorter projected lifespan.
    Cassillo expects it to last 10 to 14 years.
    The budget also calls for city crews to do more paving work of their own, since they would not be needed for the hot-recycling work. The hot-recycling machines can be used only by trained technicians.
    This year, they were able to rip out and rebuild many portions of streets that had not been scheduled for repaving this year, including the pothole-heavy hill section of Eastern Avenue.
    “Carl’s crews this year have kicked it up about 18 notches,” Cassillo said. “They milled out sections of the Eastern hill since we couldn’t get it into the recycling program.”
    Next year, the city crews will focus on residential streets because Cassillo intends to use the hot-recycling program to repave badly damaged main streets. Those streets, defined as roads used by more than 3,000 cars a day, can’t wait, Cassillo said.
    “They’re on the cusp,” he said. “You’re going to start losing them.”
    Twenty to 30 miles of main streets must be repaved in the next three years, he said. ....................>>>>...........................>>>>............................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r01403&AppName=1

Happens every election year.

Quoted from Shadow

Happens every election year.

AAAAAAAHHHHH YUP!