BY ED FELIEN
According to Mike Kennedy, the city’s director of the Transportation Maintenance and Repair Division, residents in the southwest and Lake Nokomis areas of the city call in with more complaints than anywhere else. But, the StarTribune reported, “He doesn’t believe their streets have more potholes than other parts of the city.”
Even if a city crew gets to the pothole and patches it, the constant freezing and thawing can disrupt the patch and the hole comes back uglier and more dangerous than ever.
Residents might suspect that a reason potholes are not being fixed as quickly around Lake Nokomis is because the Edgewater/-Cedar Residential Resurfac-ing project is due to start there this summer, and it doesn’t seem to make much sense for city crews to keep patching a street that you’re going to have to tear up and repave in a couple of months. But Chris Trembath, the person responsible for the resurfacing project in the Public Works Department, says that’s not the case. “There are additional crews out working on potholes, and the potholes have nothing to do with the paving project,” he stated.
According to the city, “This is a paving resurfacing project. Resurfacing projects use a mill and overlay process. This process will consist of removing a portion of the existing asphalt pavement surface and placing a new surface over the entire street. The purpose of the resurfacing program is to extend the life of a roadway by approximately 10 years. Without this program, streets in the program would not see surface improvements for many years. Edgewater was originally paved in 1978. Cedar Avenue South was originally paved in 1962.”
As the map shows, “The Edgewater Residential Project is bounded by 54th Street East on the north, Edgewater Avenue North on the east, 58th Street East on the south, and 12th Avenue South on the west.”
It’s not clear when the work will begin or when it will end. There are two seasons in Minnesota: winter and construction, and no one knows for sure when the first season will end so the second season can begin.
Trembath says, “Depending on the weather, we expect to start the resurfacing in August, but that may change. There is utility work that has to go ahead of that, mostly cleaning and relining the water mains. If it starts in August, then the entire project should be done in one to three weeks. It only takes two days to resurface a street: one day to mill down the existing surface and another to repave.”
For more information, call Council Member John Quincy at 612-673-2211.
