Just paved a few months ago.  Enough said!

Same with Eastern at bottom of hill near the first side street a whole big section has peeled away and growing.  Just done about 2 months ago.  Bet that company will still get paid even if they did a bad job of things.  

Quoted Text

SCHENECTADY
Debt load forces city to scale back street paving program
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter
Reach Gazette reporter Kathleen Moore at 395-3120 or moore@dailygazette.com.

    After two years of paving, Mayor Gary McCarthy is reluctantly downsizing his much-praised efforts to fix the city’s streets.
    The city will not borrow any money in next year’s capital budget to pave streets. The city’s debt payments are simply too high to add more debt next year.
    But McCarthy said the program has already been a success because so many of the city’s pothole-fi lled streets have been repaved.
    “We’ve caught up with the worst of the worst,” he said.
    But the city has a list of about 15 more miles of heavily traveled roads in need of urgent repaving. They are listed as being in “poor condition.”
    Some of them will get done next year. The city will continue to pave the streets with funding from federal and state grants.
    “It will continue our program,” McCarthy said.
    The city will be able to use a small amount of money from the federal Community Development Block Grant for paving. That money will be used to continue the hot recycling program, the new paving process in which machines heat up the existing pavement, mix in new oil to restore its fl exibility, smooth down the new surface and cover it with a fresh layer.
    The process has allowed the city to repave, in just two years, nearly 20 miles of the worst main roads in Schenectady. It is far cheaper and faster than rebuilding a road from the base up.
    But the state won’t let the city use funding from its Consolidated Local Street and Highway Improvement Program, to do hot recycling. To use CHIPS money, the process must be certified to last 10 years, and that’s still up for debate with hot recycling.
    “All the engineers tell me the real issue is the base,” McCarthy said. “If you have a good base but you’re getting surface deterioration and you do hot recycling, you’re getting a road that’s almost brand new. You could get 20 years out of it.”
    But if the base is already damaged, hot recycling won’t last nearly as long.
    In Schenectady, roads have been prioritized based on the amount of usage they get and their level of damage. Those without base damage have been largely repaired with hot recycling. The others have been placed on a separate list, so they can be rebuilt with CHIPS funds or other grants.
    CDBG funds are limited to “targeted” areas of low-income residents, which in the past limited paving to the Hamilton Hill and Vale neighborhoods. But the latest Census figures have changed that.
    “Pretty much the whole city is ‘targeted,’ ” McCarthy said.
    The city won’t know how much money it will get for paving until the middle of 2013. The CHIPS fund will be decided in the state budget next spring, and the city can start to spend the CDBG funds starting July 1.
    In past years, the city has received about $900,000 in CHIPS funds. Rebuilding a road from the base up can cost $200,000 per block, so that money might pave only a half-mile.
    By comparison, the city was able to pave 10 miles of roads last year for $1.6 million using hot recycling.

http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r01401&AppName=1

That's right, remove ESSENTIAL, VITAL services to the TAXPAYERS in the NEIGHBORHOODS but keep spending the taxpayers money on the political cronies and downtown.   Of course there is tax money for the precious gold ceiling.

Quoted from DemocraticVoiceOfReason

.   The RENAISSANCE continues!

      

Quoted from mikechristine1

That's right, remove ESSENTIAL, VITAL services to the TAXPAYERS in the NEIGHBORHOODS but keep spending the taxpayers money on the political cronies and downtown.   Of course there is tax money for the precious gold ceiling.

You don't seem to understand their theory here..............the folks who frequent the dss building and the slum lords and the cab drivers and the cdta drivers, could care less if the roads are in good shape or not. THOSE are the folks that keep these dimwits in office!

And all the while.........the tax exempt METROPLEX/GILLEN'S businesses are turning a profit at the cost to the taxpayers....the ones that are left that is!

Have to add the area of Eastern at Degraff is getting broken up too. Wonder if the company doing the work will be required to fix the problem.  Most likely not.  Just like Seward no one went after the company the taxpayers paid to have that street redone.

Union Ave is worse now than it was before they paved. If there are issues now months after being completed then this road is going to explode this winter.  Someone made a big mistake.  They either baked it to much or stretched/thinned the binder material or didnt apply something.   Wow.  This one is going to be interesting.  Anyone know the firm who completed this job.  

It is my understanding that you can only do this method to a road once.  After that it must be ground milled and repaved with virgin asphalt.  If this is true then the fix to these issues is not going to be a simple patch job.  I see a lawsuit coming or excuses.  

Union Ave is worse now than it was before they paved. If there are issues now months after being completed then this road is going to explode this winter.  Someone made a big mistake.  They either baked it to much or stretched/thinned the binder material or didnt apply something.   Wow.  This one is going to be interesting.  Anyone know the firm who completed this job.  

It is my understanding that you can only do this method to a road once.  After that it must be ground milled and repaved with virgin asphalt.  If this is true then the fix to these issues is not going to be a simple patch job.  I see a lawsuit coming or excuses.  

Best part of the article is where McCarthy declares pretty much the whole city is a targeted area of low income residents. He actually thinks these repaves are good for 20 years? I'm thinking maybe he should retire from this current job too, he doesn't need the headaches he helped create.

Albany St near Girls Inc and SEFCU already has chunks of pavement coming up as well. I can't imagine the it will survive a snow plow.

Add to the list:

Green St and Watt St.

As for Green, someone said that they were supposed to come back and "finish" it because, well, it's not finished and looks it. Will definately be a problem this winter.  I was on Watt St today and the same thing. Looks like the asphalt is too thin as others have stated, you can see "seams".  Just looks halfway done.

Well, come next year it will need to be done AGAIN. Thanks Gary.

There is a real big difference in the pavement work done on Eastern and that put down on Nott Terrace.  I am still kicking up tar stones on Eastern from the asphalt, you know those little pieces of tar that break off the edges.

what's the value of our taxes paid??????

Sounds like the city is going to end up in one sinkhole...

What you need to do, Cel, is pick up a bag full of the stuff and go to council meeting, POF, and speak about it, the showing of the stuff would be excellent, I can imagine this, I could imagine the applause from other attendees, as you continue on with your statement, raising the volume at the conclusion of your statement, " ... and in return for us average residents paying almost the highest taxes in the country, we get these failed street paving jobs, while all of the rich and politically connected downtown  are exempt from paying taxes!"