Going the extra mile on roads

Jersey Journal -- March 16

Two crews, made up of four workers each, carry out pothole repairs in Jersey City. Mayor Jerramiah Healy put on the second crew after he took office.

"There were never two gangs before," said Department of Public Works Director John Yurchak. "Each (of four) areas in the city are hit twice to three times a week."

Yurchak didn't have at hand the number of potholes filled each year, but he said roughly $70,000 is spent annually on the hot asphalt used to do the fills.

The pot hole-filling operation received a running start 11/2 years ago when the city paid contractor J. Fletcher Creamer & Son $650,000 to do nothing but fill potholes around the city, said Municipal Engineer William Goble.

But not everyone is finding the roads smooth.

"All you have to do is ride up and down Roosevelt Avenue and Communipaw (Avenue)," said Deidre Wine. "I have stitches and I can't ride those blocks."

To report pot holes, call DPW at (201) 547-4432, officials said.

KEN THORBOURNE

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A SINKING FEELING
Road caves in, swallows truck tire

Friday, March 16, 2007
By KEN THORBOURNE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

At his "State of the City" address last month, Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy bragged that his administration had "undertaken the largest city resurfacing project in the history of the city."

But don't tell that to the driver of a Festival Ice Cream truck that dropped into a sinkhole yesterday on Fourth Street, just west of Erie Street.

"I was having coffee and I heard a loud bang," said a neighbor across the street who rushed to the accident. "The truck was tipping over and almost fell on two cars that were parked there."

Witnesses said the only reason the truck didn't tip all the way over was a condenser on the bottom of the truck that got stuck in a section of road.

The incident, city officials explained, had nothing to do with the city's extensive road resurfacing campaign or its beefed-up pot hole repair operation; the sinkhole was caused by shoddy workmanship on the part of a private contractor, said Jennifer Morrill, spokeswoman for the city's Neighborhood Improvement District.

Several weeks ago, the contractor - Sean & Sons Excavating of Jersey City - was summoned to the street by a private homeowner to make a road cut to facilitate the emergency repair of a sewer line, Morrill said.

Two years ago, the Healy administration instituted rules that NID inspectors had be present when a cut is refilled with asphalt to make sure the work is done correctly, Morrill said. But this contractor did the work without calling the city, Morrill said.

The company will be fined $160, she said.

John Harris, owner of Sean & Sons, said yesterday he called NID when he back-filled the hole, but they never showed. However, officials from the city's Municipal Utilities Authority were present the entire time - and found no fault with what he did, Harris said. He added he knew nothing about being assessed a fine.

In the meantime, the road resurface campaign is going gangbusters, said Municipal Engineer William Goble.

In the past two years, the city has doubled its yearly spending on road resurfacing, he said. The year, the city plans to spend $4.9 million on road resurfacing - $3 million more than it spent in 2003, he said.