Materials, extra work boost Essex Ave. cost by 19%

GLEN RIDGE, NJ — Improvements to Essex Avenue will cost Bloomfield and Glen Ridge together about $225,000 more than originally estimated, according to their chief engineers. Bloomfield and Glen Ridge shared the cost of the project because the roadway straddles a borderline with residents of each community living on opposite sides of the street. The added cost will come from Bloomfield and Glen Ridge taxpayers as a capital expense.

According to Bloomfield Township Engineer Paul Lasek, Essex Avenue improvements are 19 percent more than the original $1.2 million estimate which the municipalities divided evenly. Before the project went over-budget, Lasek said 90 percent of the project was paid by a NJ Department of Transportation grant.

“A 19 percent increase is a lot,” he said in his office last week. “It’s one of the higher ones I’ve put out. The project was unique. Another issue, over near Bay Avenue, rock was encountered. In order to put in the storm line, they hit rock. We wouldn’t know that until we got into the ground.”

For the Essex Avenue project, Lasek said water service connections, from individual houses to the street, had to go over or under the new storm sewer line. A majority of the sewers were installed on the side streets coming down from Essex Avenue.

“Catch basins never existed,” Lasek said. “All the rain water went down Benson, Osborne, Pitt and Baldwin streets to Broad Street. There was always flooding around the CVS store and it took a while to drain off.”

There were no catch basins, he said, because installing them would have been a complicated job with numerous underground sewers and utilities being disrupted and replaced. The recent work did that, adding to the final cost.
“Even with utility information, you don’t know what you have until the ground is broken,” he said.
“Probably, a lot of people did not want to deal with it.”

Another reason for the added costs, Lasek said, was trench restoration along Benson and Osborne streets.
“They had to do more blacktop restoration,” he said. “Sometimes, excavations are wider than before.”
Lasek said the additional cost to Bloomfield is $124,000.

“But there were no consultants on this project,” he said. “It was designed and administered by the Bloomfield Engineering Department. For a $1 million project, that’s between $100,000 and $200,000. If you took that out of the DOT grant, you’d have less money to build the project.”

According to Michael Rohal, the chief engineer of Glen Ridge and its borough administrator, $101,452 more will have to be paid by his community.

“Bloomfield was responsible for rock and utility conflicts,” Rohal said in a telephone interview earlier this week.
Because the road grade had to be changed near storm sewers, the road surface became more shallow which conflicted with utility pipes, he said. As a consequence, different pipe material had to be installed.

“Originally, it was going to be a high-density plastic,” Rohal said. “We had to use iron storm piping or reinforced concrete pipe. And rock excavation wasn’t in the original bid.”

The work began March 2015 with the final touches, pedestrian crosswalks, painted in December. But these crosswalks are the only striping on Essex Avenue. In the original design, by Lasek, striping included a center, double yellow line; white shoulder striping to “narrow” the road as a speeding precaution; and bicycle sharrows.

But some Essex Avenue residents objected to the yellow striping and presented a petition to the Bloomfield and Glen Ridge councils. It was signed by 25 Bloomfield residents and 38 Glen Ridge residents.

Their objection was that a double yellow line was out-of-character with the neighborhood. There was also concern that this striping would increase traffic on Essex Avenue as a handy speedway for Broad Street motorists. Essex Avenue has no signals or stop signs from Bay Avenue to Benson Street. Bloomfield and Glen Ridge administrators decided to put the striping on hold.

“The striping was for traffic-calming, with narrower lanes, as opposed to a wide blacktop area, which is what you have now,” Lasek said. “The residents thought the striping would impact property values. It was up to the mayors and administrators in the towns. We were getting such a backlash and we needed to closeout the project.”

Rohal said the Glen Ridge council agreed to do another traffic study. It will be done by the Glen Ridge Police Department over two weeks this April. The results will be compared to a study done in the fall. Rohal said the analysis should take about a week with the results presented in a council public safety report.

“We’re looking for a change in speed,” Rohal said. “Forest Avenue is a similar street without striping.”
Lasek said the people who opposed the striping did not own the street but he was not faulting anyone.

“I designed it with complete streets in mind,” he said. “It’s just the way it wound up and I’m good with it.”
Complete streets is a NJDOT policy whereby streets are designed to make them more accessible to all users, including bicyclist and pedestrians.

“There may be a change,” Lasek said. “Glen Ridge is doing another study.”
Additional roadwork being done in Bloomfield this summer will include resurfacing along Hyde Road; a pedestrian signal on Lakewood Terrace; the replacement of a flashing beacon at Ampere Parkway and Chester Avenue; resurfacing Halcyon Place; Fontaine Avenue; Berkeley Avenue, between Bloomfield and Watsessing avenues; and resurfacing Washington Street from Glen Ridge to Toney’s Brook.

In Glen Ridge, additional roadway activity will include work on Douglas Road; Marsden Place; and Washington Place, from Ridgewood Avenue to Montclair. There will also be work done on Wildwood Terrace, from Ridgewood Avenue to Sherman Avenue. Under design are improvements to Herman Street, Cambridge and Edgewood roads, and Avon Place.

According to Rohal, the work is mostly repaving and ADA ramps at intersections.