Major road, sidewalk projects underway in Lowell
More money to improve drivability, walkability
LOWELL >> Nothing says spring like road and sidewalk construction projects.
Through December 2024, the city is spending more than $9 million on almost 60 area roadways. In 2023, the city completed almost $4 million worth of roadway and sidewalk reconstruction.
“I think this is a great start,” Councilor Erik Gitschier said to the motion responses by City Engineer Ting Chang during the City Council’s March 19 meeting.
A citywide sidewalk assessment was conducted during the fall of 2023, during which 224 miles of sidewalks were inventoried and assessed for conditions. Of the 224 miles, 126 miles are asphalt, 96 miles are concrete and two miles are other material such as brick or boardwalk.
The assessment summarized the sidewalk conditions as good, fair and poor condition. Gitschier noted that the fair and poor categories equaled 57.6% of the total sidewalks in the city, while the good condition sidewalks were only 42.4%.
“We have a lot of work to do,” he said.
The paving, sidewalk and crosswalk projects were included in the 2024 budget, which was approved by the City Council in June. City Manager Tom Golden’s administration put a renewed focus on maintaining the city’s 236 centerline miles of roadway in a 14-square-mile area.
Chang’s department also presented the council with a street paving list based on its road surface rating scale.
A road surface rating is a numerical scale that describes the general condition of a portion of a roadway. The RSR is determined through a manual inspection. MASSDOT recommends that a RSR inventory be done every three years. Lowell’s last RSR was last updated in 2020-2021, Chang said, but “we are in the process of getting a proposal and updating it this year.”
She said that after an initial inspection, the road rating formula automatically deducts points for each subsequent year. The lower the number, the worse off is the roadway, which lands it on the paving list.
Twelve roadways and sidewalks are scheduled for a full reconstruction including Broadway between Walker and School Streets, Linden Street between Union and Chapel Streets and Eighth Avenue between Mammoth Road and Lamb St.
A full reconstruction is a major road rehabilitation project and involves removing the existing pavement and subbase, new roadbed base material is imported and compacted and new pavement is installed on the new subbase.
Another 21 streets are scheduled for reclamation and paving including the notorious Western Avenue between School St. past Western Avenue Studios to its end by the railroad tracks.
Full depth reclamation is a rehabilitation process in which the deteriorated street is pulverized for a depth of 9-12 inches plus a portion of the underlying gravel sub-base. The pulverized material is blended together and recycled into a new homogeneous subbase. New pavement will be installed on the upgraded subbase.
There are 24 streets on the micro-surfacing list, which is minor and prevention maintenance-style work.
Additionally, crack- and micro-sealing of the remaining 10 streets of the 23 under the fiscal 2023 budget were completed last year in the downtown areas of Gorham, Central, Hurd and Warren Streets among other roads.
Crack sealing is considered routine road maintenance and involves applying a heated asphalt compound to the road crack. The process is a cost-effective method to treat all types of cracks greater than 1/8”.
Total road work in 2023 came to 24.7 miles, with 4.3 miles of sidewalk repair and reconstruction and 178 American with Disability Acts ramps were reconstructed.
Some roadway and sidewalk improvements, such as Meadowcroft Street, are hampered by sewer or utility work.
“We’re working with the wastewater department [on Meadwocroft],” Chang said. “We continue to have sinkholes. We keep digging and there are surface connections that are broken. We’re working with wastewater cameras and homeowners to try and get these fixed before we can do something with the roadway.”
The roadwork projects and access to the engineering database should mitigate the number of councilor motions submitted to address constituent concerns about streets in their neighborhoods. Last year, almost 30 motions directly dealt with road conditions.
During Tuesday night’s City Council meeting, Golden said funding hadn’t kept pace with the needs of infrastructure maintenance and improvement.
“Previously, we were spending $3.7 million on our roads,” he said. “Last year, we were going close to $12 million. And whatever we bring forward in the future, over the last three budgets, we’ll be putting in over $30 million.”