50 Roads Get First Repaving In Years

Joe Colello motioned to a massive heap of milled pavement.

“What you’re standing on now,” he declared, ​“is all the roads of Hamden.”

Colello, Hamden’s superintendent of sanitation, waterways, and recycling, was positioned at the peak of the town transfer station. The heap of asphalt there has grown, as Hamden’s Public Works Department nears completion of its first phase of road pavement in more than two years.

Over the course of September and October, Hamden intends to pave 50 roads across town, all of which are considered to be in ​“failing condition” according to road surface rating metrics.

Crews are grinding down and sweeping the roads, refilling them with fresh asphalt, and moving millings to piles on properties around town. Those sites include the transfer station and the town dog park.

In August, Hamden’s Legislative Council voted on its first capital budget in four years, which approved $2.7 million for Public Works to start resurfacing more roads. Rather than waiting to bond for the money, the town has taken about $2.5 million of that sum from the general fund in order to get started immediately on fixing some fifty streets.

Director of Public Works Craig Cesare noted that independent consultants have previously told the town that maintaining Hamden’s roads should cost about $3 million a year to avoid ​“falling behind.”

Hamden has now fallen behind. But they’re trying to catch up. ​“We’re forced to be frugal with funds and still do a quality job,” Cesare said. ​“We’re not doing the grand slam… we’re doing a home run.”

On Thursday, two crews of around ten men began the morning milling Allene Lane and paving Denslow Hill Extension.

Here’s what that process looks like: First, a milling machine operated by a contracted driver— this year from the company Garrity Asphalt Reclaiming Inc— drills a few inches into the entirety of the road. That creates space for more asphalt, which once filled should still leave at least an inch between driveways and curbs to ensure proper drainage away from buildings and into gutters.

A small milling machine passes back over the roads to ensure the milling is done evenly, especially close to curbing and around catch basins.

Then a plow picks up big debris and churned asphalt and dumps it into pick-up trucks that transport it elsewhere, like the transfer station. A large sweeper machine, also owned by Garrity, then passes over the road several times to clean down the milled area.

Another worker uses a leaf blower to clear out spots that the sweeper may have missed or been unable to access, before the sweeper does a final series of runs back and forth across the road.

The final effect is a ground down road covered with diagonal grooves.

Allene Drive, a ​“medium length road,” according to Colello, took a five-person crew, not including truck drivers and police officers standing at the scene, a total of two hours to complete.

At the site, Colello checked in with public works employees and police officers, noting any issues that came up during their work, such as a broken pipe that one sweeper discovered while clearing out debris from the side of the road.

Colello served as the superintendent of streets between 2010 and 2013 before switching roles and handing the job over to Joe Lombardi. The street super oversees road related procedures and maintenance, coordinating equipment usage and employee placement; it would also be Lombardi’s responsibility to find a way to fix that broken pipe.

On Wednesday, Lombardi’s wife went into labor. On Thursday, Sept. 30, Colello temporarily took over for Lombardi, who was out on paternity leave.

While wrapping up that road milling, the crew got a gift: a new family member. Lombardi’s son was born around noon, announced John Landino, Lombardi’s long-time friend, brother-in-law, and public works truck driver.

“I’m so excited,” Landino said with a big smile, adding that he couldn’t wait to meet his new nephew, his younger sister’s first child. He described how he met Lombardi while a kid growing up in Hamden, long before Lombardi started dating Landino’s sister about fourteen years ago.

Colello said that most members of the public works crews have grown up in Hamden. ​“We’ve known each other for many years, we don’t even need to talk,” Joe Colello said about the teams’ intuitive communication sensibilities. ​“We’re all like a family.”

But after that quick celebration, it was time to move on with road work until the end of the day.

Over at Denslow Hill Extension, which lies on the southern side of town opposite Allene Drive, another crew of about ten was busy following the millers’ lead, blending hot asphalt into one smooth street.

That requires first sweeping the roads which have recollected dust since the millers last left the site. Then, a small roller distributes oil across the milled roads to help the crushed stone stick to the old pavement.

Next, a huge truck contracted from Tilcon pours hot mix asphalt in two rows on top of that oil. Risers are used to cover manholes such that they’re flush with the pavement after it’s set.

A heavy roller passes over the road multiple times, pinching and binding the seams of the pavement lines. A smaller roller is used to compress raked asphalt around driveways and catch basins.

Joe Colello acted as a natural community liaison during the process, greeting familiar faces (and in Colello’s case, practically every face is one he’s seen before) in cars passing by and ushering them across the sizzling streets.

When the road is one stretch of seamless, untouched asphalt, it’s ready.

Cesare said that the milling process, which started on Sept. 15, should be finished by Monday. Paving started a week after that, and will take another five weeks or so covering the same milling route at a slower pace, ending in early November.

Of the department’s $2.7 million paving budget, $2.5 million will cover about 11 miles of a total of 250 miles of roads throughout town, or 50 out of over 700 streets. An extra $200,000 will be used throughout the year to address cracked sealing, potholes, and other maintenance issues.

“There are hundreds of other roads that should’ve been paved this year,” Cesare stated, adding that he could’ve easily spent $20 million fixing failing roads around town.

Instead, he had to prioritize roads with the most damage that are also most frequently traversed. The final list includes Leeder Hill Drive, Winnett Street, Ralston Avenue, Frederick Street, Wadsworth Street, Prospect Court, Amory Street, sections of Hartford Turnpike., Davis Street, Franklin Road, London Drive, Allene Drive, Guinevere Court, Douglas Drive, Troiano Road, Nolan Road, Paradise Avenue, High Rock Road, Country Club Road, Bear Path Road, Sherman Avenue, Denslow Hill Extension, High Ridge Road, Cooper Hill Court, Dunbar Lane, Field Crest Lane, Cherry Hill Road, Vantage Road, Eleanor Street, Wintergreen Avenue, Oberlin Road, Wilmont Road, Lynmont Road, Wilbert Street, Blacy Street, Meadow Road, Noble Street, Oregon Avenue, Athol Place, Melrose Avenue, Melrose Court, Melrose Drive, Sunny Side Avenue, Pelham Avenue, Heather Road, Hampshire Drive, Hogan Road, and Willow Street.

The worst roads in town, Cesare said, are typically cul-de-sacs that ​“hit the chopping block each year because only six people live on that street.” That chopping block remained cut-throat this fall.

“We have a fantastic team that’s a little low on resources and a little low on manpower, but when we all work together we get the job done,” Colello asserted.

After overseeing Thursday morning’s milling and paving, Colello followed the millings and excess debris back to their ​“grave site” at the transfer station, where they enter a broader system of reused and recycled materials designed largely by Colello.

It was Colello’s idea seven years ago to distribute the millings around the ground of the transfer station to cover up mud and create a sturdy floor for trucks driving through. The pile from which they’re taken aren’t really all of Hamden’s roads; they’re a small fraction of the hundreds of miles of pavement that connect the town of over 21 square miles and 61,000 people.

The majority of the millings may actually come from New Haven roads, as the city also brings a large proportion of their ground asphalt to Hamden’s transfer station during summer street paving. Colello said one of his favorite parts of the job is working with individuals from other municipalities to generate new ideas and common solutions, even for the town’s smallest concerns.

That collaboration has a broader effect, playing into the collective brainstorming required to upkeep and reimagine pathways of connectivity among neighborhoods, districts, cities, and states.