Category: News || By

A repaving project on McKeesport's Walnut Street has revealed much of the road's original brick surface.

Crews working under a contract from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation are currently replacing the asphalt on 1.6 miles of the state-maintained road between Route 48 and the 15th Avenue Bridge, and have milled away the old tar surface. The work will continue through mid-November.

In Christy Park, the brick street is bumpy and uneven, with patches from decades of utility line repairs. Two parallel lines of concrete patch that run for multiple blocks seem to be evidence of the West Penn Railways trolley tracks that ran up Walnut Street until 1937.

But about 1,000 feet of the brick surface, north of the Sunoco station, seems to be in fairly good shape. Why not leave that section of street brick? Why not repave the rest of the street in brick?

"It's a lost art," says Nick Shermenti, the city's public works director. "Back in the '60s, when 'Greeky' Jakomas was the mayor, we actually had a brick crew who would remove the brick, put down a smooth sand base and re-lay the brick."

The process "is really time consuming, and we just don't have the manpower," he says.

. . .

There's no one left in public works who does bricklaying, Shermenti says, and during his years working for the city, he can't remember any new brick streets being built. The city has a small stash of paving bricks available for repairs, Shermenti says, but he's not sure where new bricks could even be purchased.

Ride quality is a big reason that brick streets have disappeared, says Jim Struzzi, district spokesman for PennDOT. "While the bricks may be in relatively decent shape, an asphalt surface provides a smoother ride for motorists as well as safer surface for pedestrians and cyclists," he says.

Winter safety is another factor. Smoother roads are easier to plow, Struzzi says. Rain and melted snow also drains more quickly from an asphalt street, reducing slick spots caused by "ponding water" --- essentially, shallow puddles that freeze over.

Brick roads have a very porous surface, Shermenti says. "In the winter time, if there's any kind of a divot, the water grabs hold of it," he says. "All you need is for the temperature to drop below 32 degrees, and they glaze over very fast."

. . .

Why not leave Walnut Street's bricks exposed? Struzzi and Shermenti say the only reason they look so good is because they've been protected from the elements by asphalt.

Classic brick streets were laid over a sand base and then held in place with more sand. The construction method provides "little, if any, protection from water infiltration," Struzzi says. In the winter, melting snow gets between the cracks, then refreezes. The constant expansion and contraction causes the bricks to heave and come loose.

Putting asphalt over the brick "provides a level of protection (and) waterproofing for the roadbed," Struzzi says.

Shermenti agrees. "If you expose those bricks and leave them exposed, you will have problems," he says. "The bricks will start to come loose around the curbs and manhole covers."

Brick streets also weren't designed to handle modern-day tractor trailers, Shermenti says. "There's too much flexibility in them," he says. "They just wouldn't hold the weight and pressure of the kinds of heavy equipment we have running the roads today."

. . .

On the other hand, bricks make a fine sub-base for several layers of asphalt, Shermenti says. Without the bricks, paving crews would have to pack down the soil and put down layers of stone and a new asphalt sub-base before putting down the top, surface layer of asphalt, he says.

In places where the bricks are still solid and stable, it's best to leave them intact and pave over them, Shermenti says. "If you tear them up, you disturb so much," he says.

In other cases, such as on Garbett Street, where city crews have been working this year, decades of snow, rain and traffic caused the street to heave and buckle. In those situations, paving crews must dig up the bricks, put down stone and asphalt sub-bases, and then put a smoother asphalt surface on top.

. . .

Many of McKeesport's early 20th century neighborhoods still have brick streets, although there's no estimate on how many of the city's 104 miles of streets have brick surfaces.

Shermenti isn't opposed to leaving brick street surfaces intact when they're still serviceable. "Take some of the streets up around the library," he says. "They're beautiful. Personally, I think they really complement the architecture of the old houses. But they also don't get the traffic that a street like Walnut Street gets."

And many residents like the appearance of old brick streets. Former McKeesport Mayor Joe Bendel was a vocal proponent of keeping as many brick streets as possible, going so far as to block attempts to repave his own street with asphalt.

But after Bendel's death, Shermenti says, "we had to pave the street." It's covered with asphalt now.

You are previewing your comment. Be sure to click on 'Post Comment' to store it.