City ready to step up road repairs starting with the southend

Starting in mid-September, a portion of Goodson near Gallagher will be torn up and repaved. A scaled down repaving project will also occur on Hanley. The work will be paid through a state road fund, and will total over $500,000.

 
By Charles Sercombe
City road repairs continue to motor on.
Recently, the city awarded two contracts totaling over $500,000 for the partial repaving of Goodson and Hanley streets.
Work on both streets will begin in mid-September, said Mark Ragsdale, the Director of Public Works.
On Hanley, the center lane will be milled down and filled with a new layer of asphalt from Jos. Campau to Conant. Residents will be notified of the work before it starts.
Ragsdale said that because parking is so limited, the repaving will be done in phases.
This project will cost $255,000.
On Goodson, the street will be entirely ripped up starting from Gallagher and going west for 280 feet.
Besides replacing the street, a new water line will be installed as well. The entire project will cost $293,000.
Funding for both projects comes from the state. The money is held in an account funded by Act 51 tax money and has about $4 million in it.
Ragsdale said these two streets were chosen based on a recent engineering study that rated all of the city’s streets.
Next spring it will be Lumpkin’s turn, from Poland to Caniff. This portion will also be entirely torn up and water mains will also be replaced.
In the ongoing pothole repairs, the following streets will be next: Mitchell (near PNC Bank), Evaline, Yemans, Belmont and Trowbridge.
After those streets are completed, and weather-permitting, a number of side streets north of Caniff will be next.
Streets that have already been repaired include Holbrook, Gallagher, Caniff, Carpenter, Commor, Casmere and Lumpkin.
The city is using a longer-lasting technique called spray filling, which clears out debris from the pothole and then insulates it with a tar and is then filled with a mixture that includes tiny pebbles.
In many instances the repairs will last for 10 years.
The city was delayed about a month in fixing potholes because a state-appointed financial board, which oversees all expenses and contracts, ordered the project to be re-bid over a technicality.
That delay caused considerable frustration in the community, and led to a group of residents taking matters into their own hands.
The residents call themselves the Hamtramck Guerilla Road Repair group and have been spending Saturday mornings cold-patching streets the city hasn’t yet touched. That initially rubbed some city officials the wrong way, but officials eventually coordinated the volunteers’ efforts with the city’s plan.
In other road maintenance news, Ragsdale said there has been a rash of residents removing no parking signs that notify of a coming street cleaning. He said it has become such a problem that the company performing the street sweepings is now documenting and photographing the signs and noting when they were put up.
Ragsdale said people are removing the signs just so they can park their car. The thinking is if the resident gets a ticket, he or she can go to court and tell the judge the city failed to notify residents.
No so any more. Ragsdale said his department goes to court armed with documentation.
The result is the ticket sticks.
But worse, that portion of the street is not cleaned because a car blocked the path of the sweeper.
“It’s ludicrous to me,” Ragsdale said of the actions by residents. “We’re here to clean your street.”