Peoples pays city $351K to repave Greensburg streets after gas line work

Greensburg’s public works department will take charge of repaving portions of 15 streets this spring and summer after Peoples completes work on its natural gas utility lines.

Peoples is paying the city $351,782 for the paving work under an agreement approved this month.

“It lets us pave the streets instead of having them come in and pave them,” city public works director Tom Bell said. “It’s more paving to do during the summer.”

Collectively, the agreement covers paving of 7,750 feet of streets and alleys. The longest stretches receiving attention will be a 1,500-foot section of Oakland Avenue and two portions of Seminary Avenue with a combined length of 1,440 feet. Those paving projects run between West Pittsburgh and Third streets.

Among the shortest work areas will be a 120-foot section of Summit Drive, from Briar Hill Drive to Greenmont Street, and 60 feet of Briar Hill, from Summit to Grandview Avenue.”

“Those streets are basically just small areas that need to be patched,” Bell said.

Those streets were included in the city’s paving program last year but have since been cut into by the utility, he said.

Other areas disturbed for gas line work and slated for resurfacing include sections of Grandview, Johnson Way, Longview, Plymouth, Oakland, Rohrer, Ridgeway and O’Hara streets, and Eicher and Madison avenues.

Under the agreement with Peoples, repaving also is slated for West Second Street, between Westminster and Vannear avenues, and West Third Street, between Oakland and Westminster avenues.

Adjacent sections of Second and Third streets and a small portion of North Tremont Avenue are among additional areas the city is considering for possible paving this year, with money available from state liquid fuels funding and a federal community development block grant program.

“The area of streets we’re paving is getting smaller and smaller every year because of the cost,” Bell said.

Council approved purchase of asphalt from Derry Construction under a state bidding program. The amount of asphalt needed is yet to be determined, and Bell noted quoted prices could change depending on fuel oil costs.

The price for asphalt used in the top coat of paving is $72.27 per ton — up from just under $66 per ton last year, according to Bell. The price for a grade of asphalt used to make base repairs is $60.59 per ton.