Community Corner

Some New London Sidewalk Work To Be Delayed

State deadline for Jefferson Ave. work would require work on six streets to be delayed

Work on six New London roads that was scheduled for this fiscal year will be delayed due to a state deadline for improvements to Jefferson Ave.

Public Works Director Tim Hanser said in a memo to the City Council that under the city’s five-year road improvement plan, the city was prepared to make sidewalk and curbing improvements to a state-owned section of Jefferson Ave. during the 2014 fiscal year. This portion of the street runs from Bank Street to Colman Street.

Hanser said the schedule anticipated milling and paving work by the state to be completed in the same fiscal year. However, the state has since given the Department of Public Works an Aug. 1 deadline to complete the curbing work and denied a request to allow the city to complete the work after the completion of the paving. The Jefferson Ave. work will be done ahead of schedule as a result.

“Basically we swapped FY ’14 planned work, which was the Jefferson Ave. sidewalk and curbing work, with FY ’13 work,” Hanser said.

On state-owned roads, the state is responsible for paving and storm drain systems while the city is responsible for maintaining sidewalks and curbs.

Hanser said the work will necessitate the use of $500,000 from a $1.6 million appropriation for paving and sidewalk projects that the Council approved in February. These funds were allocated from a $15 million bond issue approved in 2011.

The $1.6 million was to go toward improvements to 14 streets including Bank Street from Shaw Street to the town line, Buell Place (the roadway leading to the Martin Center), Coit Street, Crest Street, Deshon Street, Farnsworth Street, Lee Ave., Nameaug Ave., Nathan Hale Street, Oneco Ave., Saltonstall Street, Walden Ave., Walker Street, and Williams Street from Broad Street to Blackhall Street.

Hanser said the work on Jefferson Ave. will necessitate delaying work on Buell Place, Williams Street, Coit Street, Nathan Hale Street, Walker Street, and Crest Street until the 2014 fiscal year. The paving plan called for a total of $490,000 to be spent on these streets.

In the memo, Hanser said work could resume on the roads in the 2013 schedule in the listed order of priority if bids come in below estimates. He said that except for Buell Place, all of the work that has been delayed is related to curbing and sidewalks rather than paving.

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