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Citizen complaint of the day: What does Boston Water and Sewer have against concrete?
By adamg on Wed, 02/01/2012 - 1:35pm
UPDATE: See the comments for why this is all really the DPW's fault, well, except for the part about doing a half-assed job at leveling off the asphalt to begin with.
Of course, you have to doff your hat to the dedicated men and women of the Boston Water and Sewer Commission, who tirelessly toil in the muck and mire 24 hours a day to keep our water and sewage flowing. But why can't they ever put sidewalks back the way they found them? We had a misshapen lump of asphalt instead of a concrete square in front of our house for several years - and when it was finally replaced, it was thanks to the DPW, which was overhauling all the sidewalks on the street.
The photo above comes from W. 5th Street in South Boston, where a resident complains and pleads:
The city dug up this fire hydrant a few months ago and did a terrible job repatching the surrounding sidewalk. I've seen too many women with strollers resort to walking in the road to avoid the hole. Please patch so surface is at least level
Over on Mansfield Street in Allston, another resident posts another photo of a lumpy blob of asphalt where a piece of concrete should be.
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Comments
This is a problem that
This is a problem that plagues the city. Every time they rip up a sidewalk or where concrete was, it gets paved over with asphalt. Laying asphalt is just lazy.. sounds like someone doesn't want to do the job correctly.
Sad. But its your tax dollars at work!!!
Not lazy; them's the rules
The rule is, whoever digs up the street puts in a temporary patch and then pays the City of Boston a fee, which the City then uses to put in a permanent repair. In theory, this makes sense: you pool the money from a lot of little patches and do one nice repaving job of the whole street. In practice, it doesn't work so well: the utilities complain bitterly that they could do the job properly for a lot less than what they pay the City; the residents complain that the city is very slow to get the job done.
Ah, didn't know that, but it's still lazy
Lazy because if they're going to put down asphalt, the least they could do is do more than a half-assed job of it, given that the city may not get to it for several years.
The city inspector is still supposed to check it though.
In this case it looks like a crappy job which should be done over.
Dedham is Notorious.
Most of the asphalt patching is not very good and leads to something I call the "Dedham Dip", meaning when you drive over the patch, you might just loose your car's undercarriage because of how far the patch has sunk into the ground.
Unfortunately a lot of
Unfortunately a lot of "temporary" asphalt sidewalk patching around the city has been in place for more than a decade. Sometimes to the point that the asphalt has disintegrated leaving a mud filled hole to traverse. It's embarrassing that even in the heart of downtown there are large swathes of sidewalk with crumbling "temporary" asphalt patches which haven't been tended to since the 1980s.
This is my point
This is my point. Fine lay down some asphalt for a few weeks but go back and fix the stuff. Not let it sit there like that for years..
Depends on why it's there
If a tree uprooted the sidewalk slab, the asphalt is maintaining the path as much as possible without having to remove the concrete, destroy the root (and probably lose the tree at that point), and then re-level and re-pave the concrete. It's a bigger, more expensive job compared to a bit of asphalt to keep everything smoothed.
If they tore up brickwork, then they have the same problem of needing to level the bed, sand, lay the bricks, fill the gaps, etc. rather than just lay in asphalt around the remaining bricks.
It's more about cheap than it is lazy. It's a continuation of the same lack of infrastructure funding that pervades our bridges and other roads and I have a feeling every last dollar will go to keeping the Longfellow up long before they fix problems underlying a few sidewalk patches.
why am i not surprised
Not surprising in the least that this is in the jurisdiction of the West Broadway Neighborhood Assoc., who just loves to complain about anything and everything.
"oh, I just paid $600k+ for my trendy new condo in this "green" building, now let me piss and moan about everything in this neighborhood"
surprised they haven't complained about the low income housing on B Street being too close to them yet.
What's your beef?
I'm sorry, but what's your beef here? Isn't reporting potholes, burned-out streetlights, broken sewer covers, etc. exactly the sort of thing that the citizens' connect application was designed for?
It's not like the person making the report is throwing a tantrum; he/she is just reporting a piece of broken infrastructure that needs attention.
You make no sense
So its the WBNA's fault that BWS didn't patch this sidewalk properly? What would lead you to believe that the WBNA is behind a private citizen's complaint about shitty sidewalk, and why on earth would you be against that? Just like to complain yourself?
Someone should complain
Or it will never be fixed. That's how it works.
Do you think the asphalt patches are a good thing?
Or do you just dislike the people who are making the complaints?
We should all just be asshole
We should all just be asshole townies and do nothing to improve our neighborhood while sniping at any newcomers that try to get long time problems fixed. And you wonder why Southie has a reputation for being full of bigots? Wanting anything better is a sign of weakness and not wanting anyone to have what you have simply because you had it first is a badge of honor? Really?
Hey, give the townie a break
His cousin totally shoveled that asphalt while three of his buddies from high school stood around, shot the shit about the Pats and popped pills out of a ziploc bag.
Don't be mad because Finny couldn't get you a sweet gig, too.
Lots of misinformation here
I had this same problem with a hydrant in front of my house last winter. I wrote a complaint on the city's app and got a decent response back that I'll relay for you now:
They'll replace it with concrete in the spring/summer.
Part of the problem is that concrete requires a few substantial measures to be adequately poured in the cold. Instead of taking those extra measures/cost, the city will pour the concrete when it's going to be warmer and you can just pour normal concrete.
I complained and what they did do for me that day was to send a crew out to better tamp down and level the asphalt (complained on a Thursday, crew there on Friday). But it was only a few months before it was concrete again.
There are plenty of places where they asphalt patch sidewalks upheaved by trees and screw up brickwork and other things (things that take a lot more effort to fix correctly than just pouring new concrete), but it seems like whatever hydrant repairs of late get done correctly and quickly as reasonably possible.
From my CI in Boston Public Works
The way it works is this:
When anyone has to rip up a sidewalk, including other city agencies, they have to put down a deposit on eventual repair. Once the work is done you have two choices:
a. build it back in kind, and receive your deposit back, or,
b. patch with bituminous concrete (asphalt) and let go of your deposit.
In practice, most agencies, public and otherwise, choose to patch with asphalt and forego the deposit, because it is much faster and cheaper. In this specific case, calling the Mayor's Hotline would be a good way to make sure that this is followed up on. Boston Water and Sewer may be assuming that someone is coming along behind them to do more work later, or they may not be, but the Mayor's Office should be able to get a crew out there tout de suite.
The other option is to wait for roadway repaving, which on most Boston roadways is approximately every ten years. So don't hold your breath.