New Hyde Park trustees authorized funding last week for the village’s largest road repair project in at least a quarter-century.
The Village Board voted last Tuesday to borrow up to $1.5 million for the $2.1 million project to fully reconstruct nearly two miles of roads, Mayor Robert Lofaro said. State funds and village appropriations will cover the other $600,000, he said.
When the project is finished in August, New Hyde Park will have rebuilt about three-quarters of all village roads since starting a repair initiative in 2001, Lofaro said.
“The people whose roads are being done are very excited, and they’ll say that they’ve lived there for 40 years and they’ve never seen the road done,” he said.
The village opened the project for bidding from contractors last Friday, and the Village Board plans to award a contract at its May 17 meeting after Public Works Superintendent Tom Gannon reviews the bids, Lofaro said.
The project will reconstruct up to 15 roads throughout the village deemed to be in the worst shape, Lofaro said. The village paid engineering firm Dvirka & Bartilucci about $178,000 to design the project.
Lofaro said the village expects construction to begin in June and be complete by the end of August.
“When (contractors) have equipment on site they just move from one road to the next road to the next road, so they’re looking to push it as well,” Lofaro said.
Traffic may be blocked during the day on the mostly residential streets, but should be clear by the evening rush hour, Lofaro said.
The village has spent about $5 million on road repairs since 2001, when it started an initiative to rebuild every road, Lofaro said.
About $3.5 million of that has been bonded, he said, but the borrowing does not affect taxes because the village allocates $500,000 every year to spend on actual road repairs or debt service for older projects.
“Our road project basically has no impact on needing to increase taxes,” Lofaro said.
It will take at least five more years to reconstruct the rest of the roads, he said.
Some will need additional maintenance or repaving by then, he said, but not the extensive work the village has done in the past 15 years.
“The thing that I’ve learned being on the Village Board is that even if you did all the roads it doesn’t meant that you move on and you do something else, because roads require continuous maintenance and attention,” Lofaro said.
