Crews fix roads around town

CROMWELL — The town has embarked on another round of road repairs.

Crews made up of town employees and outside contractors have fanned out over the past week preparing five lanes for improvements, which, in some cases, involves completely rebuilding the roadway.

A portion of a sixth — Evergreen, between Coles and Willowbrook roads — was repaved earlier this month.

The work is part of a continuing program begun by Director of Public Works Louis J. Spina following his hiring mid-2014.

In his first budget as department head, Spina commissioned a pavement management study, which rates streets most in need for repaving or reconstruction. He has been working methodically through the list.

In just the past year alone, the town repaved or otherwise rehabilitated nearly 20 miles of road in town —“almost one-third of our stock,” Spina said recently.

That included repaving 7.1 miles of streets.

In all, the town has approximately 57.5 miles of road. Those being repaved now are Catherine, Elm, Missionary and Hillside roads, and Lincoln Road between Timber Hill Road and South Street.

Taken together, the work will result in repaving and/ or rebuilding 2.35 miles, Spina said.

“These areas are being addressed now as the town continues to make significant investments in our infrastructure,” Town Manager Anthony J. Salvatore said, discussing the ongoing work.

Paving will take place again in fall, Salvatore said.

“We have the pavement management study that we go by. And both the director of Public Works, Mr. Spina, and I have to been trying to stick to that, and we’ve been very fortunate that the (town) council has been supportive of those efforts,” he added.

Wednesday, Salvatore put the cost of this spring’s portion of the road-repair projects at $450,000.

Spina described the pavement management study as “one the best tools you can have. We had a professional come in and review the roads and make an objective assessment of which roads should be done first,” he explained.

Before he decides which to place on the list to be repaired, Spina reaches out to the Water Pollution Control Authority, water department and public utilities such as Eversource “to see if they have any plans to do any major work on these roads in the next few years.

“The last thing you want to do is to repave a road and then have someone come in three weeks later and excavate that road,” he said.

Spina had one penciled in for repaving with the current group of roads. But when he talked to the WPCA, he found out staff were planning repair work that would require opening up 300-plus feet of the roadway, so he removed it from the list.

Repairs begin with crack sealing, after settling and the freeze-thaw cycle opens up fissures in the street. Left unchecked, water from rain or snow melt gets in and the crevices widen.

Crews can apply either natural product or a petroleum-based liquid to seal the cracks, which buys time before a road has to be repaved.

Milling and paving is the next step. The worn-out surface of a road is removed and then the underlay is “milled” — furrows cut into the underlay and a new top coat laid down.

The furrows help the overlay bond more tightly to the underlay.

The final step is reclaiming a road, which essentially involves rebuilding the entire roadway, Spina said. The process involves stripping off the existing asphalt and pulverizing it.

That pulverized product then becomes the base material, which is overlain with a two-inch binder coat.

The crown of the road (which directs water off to the curb) is re-established and the road is tied into catch basins to restore appropriate drainage. A 1.5-inch surface coat is put down and tied into driveway aprons to cause water to flow into the nearby drains.

The reconstruction of a portion of Willowbrook Road, which has been widened and repaved, is separate from the ongoing infrastructure repair project being conducted by Spina and the highway department.

The Willowbrook project, tentatively scheduled to be complete sometime in July, is jointly funded by federal, state and local governments.

Jeff Mill / Hearst Connecticut Media Road crews were out paving Cromwell streets Wednesday afternoon.