Stamford Will Increase Road Paving, Sidewalk Restoration

Stamford CT

28 March, 2022

5:26 PM

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STAMFORD, CT — Stamford Mayor Caroline Simmons on Monday morning announced the Pave Stamford initiative, which will increase the amount of road paving and sidewalk restoration around the city. Simmons made the announcement during a news conference at Stamford's Highway Division building at 90 Magee Ave. "This is an initiative that aims to fix our roads, fix our sidewalks and improve our infrastructure for the people of Stamford, so they can get to and from work safely, their kids can walk to school safely, so we can enhance quality of life and public safety for all residents," Simmons said. There are four aspects of the initiative, Simmons explained. First, the city will increase operational capacity and double the amount of roads that will be paved this year. The city will aim to pave 70 roads through a two-tiered paving schedule in 2022 — 43 roads in the first tier, and an additional 27 in the second tier. Tier 1 can be viewed here. Residents can submit requests, recommendations and feedback for Tier 2 and other aspects of the project through the city's FixIt Stamford portal. Secondly, the city will be focusing on repairing sidewalks over the next five years, starting with the areas around public schools. Simmons said year one will include Newfield Elementary, Davenport Ridge Elementary, North Elementary, Springdale Elementary and Julia A. Stark Elementary. Simmons said Stamford will launch a comprehensive city-wide roadway assessment to establish the priority paving list for Fiscal Year 2023-2024. For the first time in the city's history, Simmons said Stamford will work to integrate roads that were previously labeled "unaccepted" for paving into the city's future paving list. "This is really important. We hear all the time from residents who happen to live on a road that's unaccepted by the city. That means they don't get the same benefits, their street does not get paved," Simmons said. "Some of these streets haven't been paved in over 25 years, so we're aiming hopefully by the end of the year to legally get those roads accepted so that paving can begin in the coming years." Simmons was joined by Stamford Director of Operations for Matt Quinones, Traffic and Road Maintenance Supervisor Thomas Turk and Acting Traffic and Engineering Director Frank Petise for Monday's news conference. "We know that repairing and paving our roads and sidewalks is one of the most basic and critical services that a city can provide to residents. I couldn't be more proud and grateful for our team for all their work leading this initiative," Simmons said. Quinones said paving city roads will be an ongoing investment. The city has requested $3 million for enhanced paving in its current budget request. About $10 million for work was carried over from last year from the previous administration, and $3 million has been earmarked for sidewalk restoration, according to Quinones. "We're hoping to get through as much of that as we can this year," added Simmons. Quinones said he wants to be aspirational. It's likely the city will pave roughly 50 roads per year on average. "If we look back on four years for the administration, I think 200 roads is a very ambitious but feasible target," he said. Turk said there's more to paving than just improving the surface of the road. "It's not only the paving on the surface, we fix the drainage underneath. We're doing all the drainage work under the road to make sure that's flowing properly. Then we pave on top," he said. Turk spoke about the impact the initiative will have on residents and visitors to the city. "It's massive when you pave a road for somebody. Even if they don't live there and it's just their commuter road, it just changes their whole commute," he said. "It can only benefit."