Cleveland, OH
Sheffield Lake
By John Edwards
Sheffield Lake’s annual side street resurfacing program is about to get underway. The program is funded by a .25-percent income tax hike approved by voters several years ago. Revenue produced by that tax increase can only be spent on road resurfacing and repair projects or on equipment for the service department’s street crews, including trucks, snow plows and crack sealers to pay the city’s matching shares of Ohio Public Works Commission (OPWC) or Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) grants for resurfacing thoroughfares such as Abbe, Lake and Lake Breeze roads, all of which have storm sewers.
The state will not provide OPWC (Issue 2) or ODOT funding assistance to pave streets without storm sewers. The idea was to build up the bases of side streets with single tar-and-chip coatings while installing storm sewers, funded by the Stormwater Utility fee residents pay along with monthly water, sewer and refuse collection bills. More than 20 miles of new storm sewers have been installed since the project began.
In the past, single applications of tar-and-chip resurfacing (the chips are limestone fragments) proved insufficient for a lasting road surface, and rising dust clouds from the limestone chips embedded in the asphalt surface provoked complaints from residents. Several streets had to be tarred-and-chipped again the following year or after two years.
Under then-Service Director Joe Arendt, the city tried, in 2009, an experimental application of tar-and-chip resurfacing by one contractor followed by a coating of Gilsonite sealer by a second contractor. Arendt said a trial tar-and-chip resurfacing on South Street and Maplewood Avenue by Crossroads Construction of Columbia Station and subsequent applications of Gilsonite sealer by Cook Paving of Cleveland one day later, proved effective at minimizing the dust clouds that plagued residents in previous summers.
This year, Service Director Len Smith said the number of streets to be resurfaced has been reduced in order to, in effect, do a better job on the streets chosen for this year’s project by doubling the tar-and-chip coats and sealing the top with Gilsonite. Smith presented the list of streets in July, to give members an opportunity to suggest any changes before approving funds (to pay for a contractor to do the work) at their Aug. 4 summer meeting.
Slated to receive double tar-and-chip coats with Gilsonite sealer are: Forestlawn, from West Drive to Howell; Idlewood, from Ferndale to the city limits and from Ivanhoe to Richelieu; Lafayette, from Richelieu to Lake Road; and Mansfield and Marion, from Ferndale to Forestlawn. In addition, South Street will get asphalt patching from Lake Breeze to Stark; Forestlawn will get asphalt patching, from Lake Breeze to Marion. Richelieu Avenue will be crack-sealed from Harris to Lafayette and from Kenilworth to Harris Road.
“Depending on how our money holds out – and on the weather, of course – there’s a possibility we might be able to add one or two more streets to that list,” Smith said.
Contact John Edwards at news@2presspapers.com
Tags: Sheffield Lake
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