Is your street on the list? Street paving season kicks off this week

Despite Tuesday’s unseasonable cold, spring is here and with it comes street paving season.

The Philadelphia Streets Department released its first set of targets for resurfacing late last week. Work will begin this week, but don’t expect brand new streets overnight—though most of the work will happen overnight. Each stretch of pavement will take 3 to 5 weeks to go from pockmarked with potholes, to dimpled from milling, to smooth as Kris Jenkins.

To repave a street, it must first be milled, meaning the top layers of asphalt will be stripped off. As this Streetsplainer explicates, there is usually a gap between milling and the actual repaving. After milling, manholes will need to be inspected before the roads can be repaved with new asphalt and then repainted with new traffic lines.

In his budget proposal, Mayor Jim Kenney requested $23.8 million to resurface 55 miles of streets across the city. Last year’s budget of $20.4 million paid for around 85 miles of street resurfacing.  As of 2014, 900 miles of Philadelphia’s 2,575 miles of city-maintained streets were on the Streets Department’s paving backlog.

Streets Department will announce further repaving projects over the spring and summer. So, too, will PennDOT, which controls around 500 of Philadelphia’s 2,575 miles of streets. PennDOT recently announced that a $1.8 million project to repair and resurface 3.5 miles of Kelly Drive, between 25th Street and Hunting Park Avenue, and the Kelly Drive ramp to Ridge Avenue would begin this week as well.

PennDOT began construction last week on a two-year, $33.5 million project to rehabilitate and improve the Passyunk Avenue drawbridge over the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia.

During street reconstruction, Streets and PennDOT will upgrade and replace curb ramps to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. For more information about Streets Department repaving projects, visit their website here. For PennDOT’s interactive map of active construction projects, go here.

Streets Department repaving beginning this week:

• Aspen Street from Lancaster Ave. to N. 36th St.
• Brandywine Street from N. 39th St. to N. 31st St.
• Brown Street from N. 34rd St. to Folsom St.
• Folsom Street from Brown Street to N. 51st St.
• Forrestal Street from S. Uber St. to S. Sydenham St.
• Geary Street from S. 20th to Denfield Pl.
• Hulseman Street from Denfield Pl. to S. 18th St.
• Ludlow Street from S. 36th St. to S. 40th St.
• N. 32nd Street from Mantua Ave. to Lancaster Ave.
• Powelton Avenue from N. 31st Street to 33rd Street.
• S. 17th Street from Packer Ave. to Hartranft St.
• S. 18th Street from Packer Ave. to Hartranft St.
• S. 19th Street from Schley St. to Packer Ave.
• S. Uber Street from Geary St. to Schley St.
• Schley Street from 18th St to Uber St.
• Spring Garden Street from N. 39th St. to N. 42nd St.
• Wallace Street from N. 32nd St. to Lancaster Ave.