Sewickley officials examining streets for this year's paving project

Sewickley officials and Gateway Engineers are working on finalizing a list of streets for this year’s paving plan.

Council at its March 14 meeting discussed several options on how to spend the budgeted $600,000 for road improvements.

Engineer Mike Galet said he used a pavement condition index, which measures streets on a scale of 0-100 with 100 being the best, to help prioritize projects.

“We did an initial evaluation,” he said. “We’re going to go back and further refine (it) as we prepare the bid documents. If we go over the budget, we’ll likely take a street off to stay within budget. A good program has a majority of roads in the 80s, 70s, 60s. This packet that we evaluated were only the worst roads.”

Evaluations began near the end of February and into early March.

Roads being considered for repairs this year include:

• Grant Street from Bank to Linden streets.

• Linden Place from Academy Avenue to Grant Street.

• Centennial Avenue from Grove Street to Blackburn Road.

• Thorn Street from Locan to Peebles streets.

Galet said Straight, Fountain and Hill streets, as well as Academy Avenue, were taken off the list due to their involvement in future sewer projects.

Orchard Terrace, Hopkins Street and Church Way were also removed due to their conditions and may be on next year’s list.

No brick roads are being considered this year due to their high repair costs.

Council president Cynthia Mullins said the borough needs to get back to paving roads after having to skip such repairs last year due to a major reconstruction project along Crescent Avenue.

The 2022 paving budget was largely used for roadway and shoulder stabilization and to fix drainage issues that could have caused more damage to that area.

“Council is committed to a robust paving program,” Mullins said. “Gateway Engineers provided a comprehensive report on the roads under consideration. The rating system and photos provided by Mike Galet of Gateway gave council a very clear picture of which streets need to be prioritized.

“We are looking forward to finalizing the list and getting started. In the meantime, the borough public works department is working on improving some roads until we can get them on the paving schedule.”

Bids are expected to go out by early May and be awarded in June. Paving could start in July.