‘OBSTACLE COURSE’ OF ROADWORK
Busted tires, lots of frustration for Summer Street drivers
“The noise that my car made was nothing short of catastrophic.” Chris Gradel, a Stamford resident
STAMFORD — Chris Gradel drives around town in a Jeep Grand Cherokee. It’s a hefty vehicle with big wheels — the kind often associated with adventures in the Great Outdoors.
Commercials show Grand Cherokees barreling through rugged terrain and making sharp turns on treacherous highways. “Jeep Grand Cherokee — the most awarded SUV ever — can handle it all,” according to a masculine-sounding announcer advertising the latest model.
Except, apparently, for raised manholes on Summer Street.
“The noise that my car made was nothing short of catastrophic,” Gradel said. “My car was basically
like ‘you know what just happened.’ ”
Gradel spent 722 dollars repairing his two blown tires after the incident, plus the cost of rideshares to get him to and from Town Fair Tire.
Road crews dug up the street April 26 to prep it for repaving. In the week and a half since, residents have emerged left and right, claiming that they’ve popped tires along the milled street just like Gradel.
Jennifer Stannard blew one tire and damaged the other on April 28 on one of the manholes. (“It was very much like an obstacle course,” she said.) Brandon Temple damaged his Subaru Forester while driving along Summer Street on May 3. Temple said he saw another car parked right up the street, less than a block away, waiting for a tow truck along with him. Even city Rep. Eric Morson, D-13, destroyed his front right tire on May 1.
“I had to navigate it all like slalom,” Morson said.
Between April 20 and May 5, the Stamford Police Department received nine calls for flattened tires on Summer Street, according to Traffic Unit Head Sgt. Jeffrey Booth, who said that the police department typically dispatches an officer in these situations. Since April 26, six residents submitted complaints to FixIt Stamford, the city’s request system, according to a Freedom of Information request. On the neighborhood-based social media site Nextdoor, at least 11 residents claimed that they’d slashed tires on the raised manholes along Summer Street.
Some of the impacted motorists declined to file a police report saying “they were going to take their complains to the Government Center directly,” Booth said.
“Summer Street is one of the most frequently used city roads in Stamford and as a result has been a high priority for repaving and repair,” city spokesperson Arthur Augustyn said. “The road’s poor condition put motorists and pedestrians at risk. Milling the road temporarily exposes rougher conditions but is necessary for safe and proper repair. We ask residents to stay alert when operating vehicles on any roads — especially roads receiving repairs — to avoid damage or injury.”
To alert drivers of the hazards ahead, maintenance workers spraypainted the exposed manholes with bright orange paint on the side of the hazards to catch drivers’ attention. On the side of the road, diamond-shaped signs in the same color warn cars of “raised structures” on the road. Some of the aggrieved drivers say that isn’t enough. Both Temple and Stannard say they were driving under the speed limit — 30 miles per hour — precisely to avoid obstacles. The obstructions still damaged their cars.
While city officials acknowledge that people should be driving more slowly down Summer Street, no signage indicated a mandatory slow-down area.
Even though the damaged wheel saga is close to ending — the city began paving the road Thursday — Rep. J.R. McMullen, R-18, issued a recommendation to residents perturbed by the milled roads. After all, it is only the beginning of paving season in Stamford, and the city is scheduled to undertake projects throughout 2021.
“Slow down,” McMullen wrote on Nextdoor. “Ignore the knuckleheads driving too fast for the conditions and try not to gloat too much when you pass them waiting for a tow.”