Department of Public Works Director John Tomasz talked about the department’s plans to improve at least four roads this year at a recent Select Board meeting.
Walnut Street is expected to be finished by April, while Bluejay Road, Heath Circle, and Gerry Road are expected to be finished during the summer, he said.
Tomasz said that the department typically chooses anywhere from four to 11 streets to fix each year.
“It depends upon the size of the street,” Tomasz said. “Some streets, like Lowell and Chestnut, we will do sections at a time. Sometimes you can’t go by the number of streets, but sometimes just based upon the length is pretty consistent year in and year out.”
Tomasz said that paving is not the only work the department does on the streets.
“It includes paving the curb stone, sidewalk, catch basins, ADA, things like that,” Tomasz said. “So it’s not just paving the street. There’s a lot of components that are required for each street we go on.”
In addition to the four streets, Tomasz said the department will also work on the intersections of Summer and Salem streets, and Lowell and Main streets.
“They were highly rated intersections where the Complete Streets Program felt we should do work there,” Tomasz said.
Tomasz said that he would like for the department to work on more streets this year.
“After the streets I have listed, the four, I have roughly about $338,000 left,” Tomasz said. “I still would like to do one or two more streets. Plus, there are a lot of streets where the whole street isn’t bad, but the sections are bad. And I would like to get to those this year.”
