fbpx
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Sign up for Free Newsletter
  • Print Edition
    • Get Home Delivery
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
    • Advertise
    • Customer Support
    • Submit A News Tip
    • Where’s My Paper?
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial
  • Holiday Gift Subscription
Hudson Valley One
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Featured Events
      • Art
      • Books
      • Kids
      • Lifestyle & Wellness
      • Food & Drink
      • Music
      • Nature
      • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
    • Editorials
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Help Wanted
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Podcast
  • Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Featured Events
      • Art
      • Books
      • Kids
      • Lifestyle & Wellness
      • Food & Drink
      • Music
      • Nature
      • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
    • Editorials
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Help Wanted
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Podcast
  • Log In
No Result
View All Result
Hudson Valley One
No Result
View All Result

Stretch of Kingston’s Broadway has caused extensive vehicular damage

by Rokosz Most
August 11, 2021
in General News
2
Stretch of Kingston’s Broadway has caused extensive vehicular damage
Fixing the roadway on Broadway in Kingston. (Photo by Dion Ogust)

“Oh, God, that pothole was there when I was learning how to drive, and now I’m teaching my daughter to drive and it’s still there.”
— Livery driver, driving Broadway under the railroad overpass.

“Busted axle shafts. Snapped tie-rods. Exploded tires.”

A mechanic at the J&H Tire and Auto Center on Cornell Street goes down the list of bad outcomes a driver can expect after hitting a pothole at high speed.

“You’re going along at 30 m.p.h. even, and bang! There was no orange warning sign or maybe there was but you didn’t see it. It’s too late now. That new clickity sound coming from your tire could be a demolished CV joint.”

In any city with heavy precipitation, drivers come to loathe potholes. Kingstonians are no exception.

A mere depression on a road surface, the cracked and crumbling beginnings of something deeper, or an outright sinkhole to the underworld, a pothole is usually the result of water pooling in the underlying soil. Once settled in place, the pooled water expands and contracts with seasonal changes in temperature, stressing and eroding the asphalt above and beside it. Vehicles passing over the affected area do the rest.

At first blush, it seems easy enough to just fill in the open hole in the road with asphalt and let the passing traffic take care of the compaction. This is known as throw-and-go,

style of year-round repair common to rural areas and poverty-stricken regions. In the case of Kingston, it’s used primarily between the months of November to March, when winter cold holds sway.

The only advantage of this method is that the unheated asphalt, known as cold patch, plugs holes even when the temperatures are below freezing. It’s a stopgap measure to get the driving populace over the icy hump and into the springtime.

From April to October, the repair job can be done right. The old surface of the asphalt road is ground down with a machine called a miller. A jackhammer then breaks through the surface of what remains. A large water-cooled saw cuts a square hole and any remaining rubble is removed with an enormous vacuum tube attached to a truck. Drainage solutions are applied, and when all has been accomplished a dense, hot-mix asphalt is poured in to patch the hole. Then the new asphalt is tamped down. This is how a pothole is fixed properly.

The annual effort to repatch, retread and resurface Kingston’s roads is in full swing. Mayor Steve Noble’s weekly message keeps the public up to date as to which local roads are scheduled to be fixed and when.

On Broadway between Albany Avenue and Grand Street, there has been an intense state and city focus on tearing up the roadway, replacing ancient pipes, installing new lighting, adjusting the manholes, changing the traffic pattern, repaving the road surfaces, and adding trees and street furniture — all the while leaving enough room in the wide central artery for ambient traffic.

Up and down Broadway, the side roads are impeded by rows of traffic cones and horizontal white boards hashed with diagonal orange stripes. The smoky reek of bubbling asphalt hangs in the air. Long-necked excavators peel back the ground. Dump trucks trundle back and forth, heavy with loads of gravel or filled with the rubble that was dug out and saved for recycling.

The din rises above even the thick lunch-hour traffic. Suntanned workers dripping sweat guide spinning saws through materials that seem harder than steel. It is a strange thing to accept that concrete is soft, that steel can be cut through, and that asphalt is flexible.

Through various revenue streams, the City of Kingston has accumulated the money long ago for the asphalt milling machine, for the pavement saw, the jackhammer, the single-drum vibratory roller. These words are a poetry of sorts for the workers who must tame the broken streets.

Even though these are good union jobs, the work of repairing potholes on the roads can be a thankless enterprise. Extreme weather. Dangerous environs. Backbreaking labor but the sort of labor where, as one worker puts it, “When you do good, nobody remembers. When you do wrong, nobody forgets.”

Wearing a reflective orange vest, a road worker calling himself Sammy T. is on a smoke break. “Just ’cause you see a hole in the ground, don’t assume it’s one of ours,” he says. “Could be utility workers dug the hole. Filling them sloppy. They pay private companies to come along after them, and do it correct. And we’re not out on the roads that connect to the highways. That’s New York State. There’s a lot of people doing work around here right now.”

He pinches his cigarette off before it’s finished and puts it in a cigarette box. “Well,” he says, “back to work.”


Grin and bear it

Despite the considerably painful damages that Broadway construction has inflicted on local vehicles, Kingston mayor Steve Noble has remained relentlessly positive. The construction will be over soon, he has assured his local audience, and Kingston’s infrastructure will end up considerably improved.

“This has been a very busy and productive construction season for us here in the City of Kingston,” reported Noble in his  weekly message to his constituents. “Just this week, construction for the Broadway-Grand intersection improvements project began, and the DOT team paved Washington Avenue from Hurley Avenue to the bridge over Esopus Creek. We know this may feel like a lot of detour signs, but we’re making great progress in improving the city’s infrastructure for our residents.”

Each week, the mayor tells residents which roads are scheduled for paving. This week, for instance, the list consists of Hunter Street from Wurts to Ravine and McEntee from Broadway to West Pierpont. Weather permitting, the paving will take place on from August 9 to August 14.

The city Department of Public Works’ division of paving and repair of roads must coordinate closely in a project as extensive as that on Broadway with some of the eight other DPW divisions, such as those in charge of the sanitary sewers and the runoff.

Much of the information on paving in this article was supplied by Maureen Topple, the DPW’s principal account clerk.

Kingston has planned for the funding of the Broadway rehabilitation project, and the recent and expected influx of new federal funding for infrastructure will leave the city on a solid financial footing.

— Geddy Sveikauskas

Join the family! Grab a free month of HV1 from the folks who have brought you substantive local news since 1972. We made it 50 years thanks to support from readers like you. Help us keep real journalism alive.
- Geddy Sveikauskas, Publisher
Previous Post

Kingston-Ulster Airport is sold

Next Post

Village of Saugerties receives nearly $200,000 in Federal COVID-19 relief funds

Rokosz Most

Deconstructionist. Partisan of Kazantzakis. rokoszmost@gmail.com

Related Posts

Ignoring road closure signs, driver gets tractor trailer stuck on mountain road in Saugerties for 24 hours
General News

Ignoring road closure signs, driver gets tractor trailer stuck on mountain road in Saugerties for 24 hours

February 8, 2023
Fence installed at Opus 40 to separate house from sculpture following noise, trespassing complaints
General News

Harvey Fite home and Opus 40 are reunited

February 7, 2023
Dog rescued from Wallkill River’s icy grip
General News

Dog rescued from Wallkill River’s icy grip

February 5, 2023
Two hurt in icy conditions in Shandaken
General News

Two hurt in icy conditions in Shandaken

January 18, 2023
TerraCottage pottery studio coming to New Paltz’s Huguenot Street
General News

TerraCottage pottery studio coming to New Paltz’s Huguenot Street

January 12, 2023
Village of New Paltz Christmas tree pickup
General News

New Paltz’s Christmas tree pickup plan

January 11, 2023
Next Post
Olive tax increase, with board approval, will exceed the cap

Village of Saugerties receives nearly $200,000 in Federal COVID-19 relief funds

Please login to join discussion

Trending News

  • Ignoring road closure signs, driver gets tractor trailer stuck on mountain road in Saugerties for 24 hours 2.9k views
  • Visit Kingston’s 12,240-square-foot squat, centrally located with wood-burning fireplace 2k views
  • Dog rescued from Wallkill River’s icy grip 713 views
  • Controversy ensues as KCSD walks back Black History Month opt out language 695 views
  • Judge tosses most serious charge against trooper in death of eleven-year-old  584 views
  • Saugerties Snow Moon parade postponed until Sunday due to weather 501 views

Weather

Kingston
◉
25°
Clear
6:59 am5:20 pm EST
Feels like: 25°F
Wind: 1mph S
Humidity: 84%
Pressure: 30.3"Hg
UV index: 0
FriSatSun
52/30°F
43/23°F
46/30°F
Weather forecast Kingston, New York ▸

Subscribe

Independent. Local. Substantive. Subscribe now.

  • Subscribe & Support
  • Sign up for Free Newsletter
  • Print Edition
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial
  • Holiday Gift Subscription

© 2022 Ulster Publishing

No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Featured Events
      • Art
      • Books
      • Kids
      • Lifestyle & Wellness
      • Food & Drink
      • Music
      • Nature
      • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
    • Editorials
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Help Wanted
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Podcast
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Contact Us
    • Customer Support
    • Advertise
    • Submit A News Tip
  • Print Edition
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
    • Where’s My Paper
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Log In
  • Free HV1 Trial

© 2022 Ulster Publishing