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By ANNE KAROLYI; Times Leader Staff Writer
Saturday, April 16, 1994     Page: 1A QUICK WORDS: LEARN TO LOVE THOSE
POTHOLES; REPAIRS MAY TAKE MONTHS

WILKES-BARRE — That familiar ka-chunk and ka-bang of tires hitting
potholes could still be ringing on city streets as late as fall, officials
said.
   
That’s because sections of as many as 24 city streets need some major
reconstruction and repaving, Administrator Richard Muessig said Friday.
    “I haven’t ever seen it this bad,” Muessig said.
   
City workers are compiling a list of the worst roads. By the month’s end,
the city will have estimates of how much work needs to be done and at what
cost, Muessig said.
   
The next question will be more difficult to answer: how to pay for it.
Muessig said the city has about $250,000 in liquid-fuels money, and he is
investigating if any federal community-development money can be used.
   
Until work projections are complete, the city won’t know how big the bill
will be. “That’s what the estimates are for,” Muessig said.
   
Similarly, until Muessig knows how much money is available, he won’t know
exactly how much work will be done where, he said. For example, Hazle Avenue
will make the city’s worst-hit list, but it needs the most repair in a
particularly nasty spot near Neddoff’s Restaurant, 101 Hazle Ave.
   
Another car-shaking section of roadway is on Stanton Street, near Solomon
Industries at 495 Stanton, he said.
   
City crews will do the projects whenever possible, though some larger jobs
will have to be contracted, Muessig said.
   
The biggest road problems stemmed from a double whammy of weather in
January: a severe cold snap followed by temperatures as high as 50 degrees
several days later.
   
“The extreme cold drove the frost really deep, and then when it got warm it
just popped stuff,” Muessig said. “Whole chunks of roadway have come loose.”
   
The worst sections aren’t just potholes or cracks in the surface. The
“binder,” the layer between the top and bottom of the roads, buckled and
fractured. Those sections must be cut out and replaced.
   
“They just blew out,” Muessig said.
   
City crews continue to pound hot patch into potholes. Starting Monday, the
patchwork will follow the city’s spring-cleanup schedule, said Joe Davis,
superintendent of streets. Workers will spend a week in each section of the
city.
   
“After we clean ’em, we’ll patch ’em,” Davis said.
   
The cleanup begins Monday in the Rolling Mill Hill/Iron Triangle section
and continues weekly in the East End and North End, the Heights, the Parsons
and Miners Mills sections, and, during the final cleanup week of May 16, in
South Wilkes-Barre.
   
The city should have a better idea of when and where the major roadwork may
begin and end in a few weeks, Muessig said.
   
“It’s going to take awhile,” Davis said of the repairs. “What a winter.”
   
TIMES LEADER/RICHARD SABATURA
   
Officials expect as many as 24 streets, including North Main Street, will
need major repairs