Online Program Will Cut Street Paving Disruptions

The Queens Gazette reported on an initiative called Street Works Manual that will reduce the many aggravations resulting from redundant and seemingly endless street construction. Along with Mayor Bloomberg and other elected officials, Senator Gianaris announced this online program that will improve coordination among construction companies for more streamlined and efficient performance.

We doubt very much that anyone anywhere in New York City, especially in Queens, the largest borough geographically and with the most linear feet of streets, roads and avenues lined with homes and businesses, has not experienced disruptions on the street on which they live or travel regularly. It has often seemed to us that as soon as a street was repaved after having been dug up for some reason or another, another crew from another utility, construction firm or city agency was taking jackhammers to the newly laid pavement.

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Last week Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, along with state Senator Michael Gianaris, Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer, Con Edison Vice President for Government Relations John Banks and National Grid New York President Ken Daly, announced that the city had started a new online program to improve coordination of street projects, keeping more streets open for foot and vehicle traffic, making New York City much more business-friendly and cutting costs. Bloomberg made the announcement on a stretch of Skillman Avenue in Sunnyside, where the program’s recent implementation coordinated Con Edison work with a street resurfacing project under city aegis. Crews from a utility and a city agency worked with each other so the street was torn up and repaved only once, to the astonishment of not a few of the local homeowners and business operators.

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