Science vs. squawking in Lynn street fight

LYNN – Public Works Commissioner Andrew Hall vowed science, rather than the loudest complaints, will dictate how city streets are prioritized for repair in the future, but that won?t stop Debra Laub from picking up her telephone in an attempt to get Sylvia Street repaved.Laub lives halfway along the stretch of Sylvia running up a steep hill off Euclid Avenue. She blames rainwater and snow melt rushing down the hill, freezing and thawing temperatures, and a lack of response from city officials for the cracks, uneven pavement and bumps in the road she is trying to get fixed.?We?re endlessly put on a list every year, but it never gets done. I?m really fed up,” Laub said, adding that Sylvia?s asphalt sidewalks need repaving, in part because they lack curbstones that could keep drivers from parking on the sidewalks during winter plowing days.Knee surgery three years ago did little to improve Laub?s ability to negotiate the walkway lined with cracks in front of her home. “It?s really awful,” she said.Hall thinks he has a solution to complaints such as Laub?s about streets in need of repair across the city. Building on a proposal developed by the DPW before he became commissioner last spring, Hall hired Norwood-based traffic consultant Beta Group to conduct a $50,000 survey of local streets.Beta is wrapping up its work for this year and the survey, once completed, will rank 153 miles of local roadway, from streets that can get by with relatively simple and inexpensive patching all the way up to streets requiring “grinding and overlay” – a complete makeover.?Basically, they are rating the roads,” Hall said.Hall – a former Lynn Water and Sewer Commission engineer – admits it is going to be tough to replace a “squeaky-wheel-gets-the-grease” approach to street repair with an orderly prioritization process.?We?re trying to apply a scientific approach but everyone wants their street fixed,” he said.Beta will use its research to create a priority list for the 2015 repair season slated to start in April. A dozen streets left over from this year?s repair list will also be prioritized.Beta – if Hall has his way – will conduct a street survey every two years.The city received $1.5 million in state tax dollars this year to pay for road repair projects, including work on 38 streets. A summertime DPW paving list included sections of Allen Avenue, Hamilton Avenue, Alley Street, Hurd Street, Oneida Street and West Green Street. The road repair schedule stretches from spring to November, and Hall said work wrapped up on Magnolia Avenue and Peary Avenue last Wednesday – much to 38-year Peary resident Gail Plourde?s satisfaction.?I don?t ever remember them doing over the whole street before,” she said.Plourde said Peary deteriorated for years as drivers used it as a cut-through from Euclid to Magnolia and over to Broadway. “The manholes were coming out of the street – it was horrible,” she said.Plourde is waiting for new curbstones to be installed on Peary, but Laub wonders when Sylvia will appear on a fix-up list. Although he is not sure Sylvia will be prioritized by Beta Group, Hall knows the street got included in the firm?s review.?If it is truly as bad as she says it is, it will get priority listed,” he said.