(News)

No signs are necessary to tell people to slow down on Grandview Avenue.

When a car's wheels go thudding from the paved surface onto the grooved and rutted concrete or bricks underneath, its driver slows way down.

Grandview is one of several streets around the city where crews have removed the old pavement --- a process called "milling" --- but haven't yet laid new asphalt. And it's driving (pardon the pun) many people nuts.

"Unfortunately, every year we have to do all of the milling and grind all of the pavement off all at one time, because that's why we get the price we get from the (contractor)," Mayor James Brewster says.

The city doesn't have its own milling machine, but it does have a newly purchased road paver, and it is out and working, the mayor says. Crews will get to all of the streets left unfinished within a few weeks, he says.

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Grandview Avenue, however, is proving to be particularly problematic, Brewster says. Construction began back in June and stalled.

The street has long been plagued by a "washboard" effect that caused the blacktop pavement to buckle. (Some people call it Grandview's "rumble strips.")

West Penn Railways operated streetcars in the Grandview area until 1937. Although the rails were removed, wooden railroad ties underneath were left in place, the mayor says. (A photo on page 147 of the 1999 book McKeesport Trolleys shows some of those wooden ties being laid by a West Penn crew on nearby Versailles Avenue under the rails and bricks.)

The railroad ties have now rotted, Brewster says. "That's caused the bricks to sink, and we've got to dig the whole road up," he says.

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Meanwhile, Brewster says the city can "safely say" that it will have enough money left over from the reconstruction of West Fifth Avenue to pave the ramps leading to the W.D. Mansfield Memorial Bridge.

A $1 million state grant was supposed to cover only the area between Ramp Two and Rebecca Street, but the decision not to remove the streetcar tracks will free up some of the money.

State Department of Transportation officials must still sign off on that use of the money, City Administrator Dennis Pittman says. A PennDOT spokesman told the Almanac last month there would probably not be any legal problems with using the money to extend the paving.

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Although it may not seem fast enough for people who work in the area, work is also proceeding rapidly on Fifth Avenue between Water and Coursin streets, Brewster says.

Under the state's Home Town Streets program, crews from Power Contracting Co. of Carnegie are widening the street, rebuilding curbs and making other improvements.

City officials are pushing the contractor to finish most of the project before the "Salute to Santa Claus" parade in November, Brewster says, but Power's contract gives them until the spring to complete the work.

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Another public works project on the city's summer "to-do" list is creation of a sidewalk between Market and Walnut streets in the Third Ward.

The sidewalk will be created along the path of the former 12th Avenue, which is closed and is going to be permanently vacated, Brewster says.

The area is slated for redevelopment when a new regional county court facility is constructed in the city.