By Andreas Yilma, Staff Writer
NAUGATUCK — The Board of Mayor and Burgesses this month supported a five-year paving plan officials hope will get worn-out streets on the road to recovery.
“In the next five years we want to make a major dent in completing the town and getting our roads up to standard,” Mayor N. Warren “Pete” Hess said.
Under the plan, the borough is looking to do about $1.6 million worth of road work in the spring of 2021. The plan is to pave 34 roads in the spring, including all or parts of Maple Hill Street, City Hill Court, Maple Terrace, Curtis Court and Central Avenue.
“We’re trying to continue to improve the quality of the roads overall in the borough,” Public Works Director James Stewart said.
Roads slated for work are prioritized based on several factors, including the quality of the road, whether it’s a main road and whether preventive measures, like chip sealing, will help preserve the road.
“The way the roads are picked out is the computer tells us what roads are the most heavily traveled, what roads would benefit most by crack sealing,” Stewart said. “It’s geared toward maintain a road versus rebuild a road.”
Officials have focused on increasing road paving over the past five years. About $2 million worth of road paving was done in 2019 and $1.2 million in 2018, Stewart said.
The borough receives state funding to complement local funds for the work, including from the Local Capital Improvement Program and the Local Transportation Capital Improvement Program.
Officials are looking to keep that monument going and plan to request that the Board of Finance increase the amount of local funds earmarked for paving by $120,000 to $800,000 in the 2021-22 budget. The five-year plan calls for nearly $2.6 million worth of road paving — supplemented by state funds — in the 2021-22 fiscal year.
The five-year plan projects the borough will do nearly $8 million worth of road paving total in the 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25 fiscal years.
“We’re going to continue focusing on main roads where they’re most heavily traveled,” Stewart said.
