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Q&A
Coordination of infrastructure work to minimize street disruptions
2:30:23
ยท
3 min
Council Member Restler and Acting COO Georgelis discuss efforts to coordinate infrastructure work and minimize street disruptions, including collaboration with other agencies and utility companies.
- Coordination with DOT's paving schedules to avoid newly paved streets
- Consideration of protected street status in planning work
- Discussion of a Manhattan pilot project for coordinated infrastructure improvements
- Efforts to proactively replace hardware and conduct repairs before final paving
Lincoln Restler
2:30:23
yet.
2:30:25
Probably not a reason for optimism.
2:30:27
And then relatedly, on behalf of council member Holden, you know, I think one of the, you know, one of the ambitions that I think many people in city government have had over many many decades is improved coordination when we dig up the streets.
2:30:50
Have there I imagine that for you all, you know, well, you all do a lot of sewer infrastructure work all the time.
2:30:59
Is there an effort in the lead replacement work to coordinate any efforts with National Grid, with Con Ed, sewer line work, you know sorry.
2:31:06
Let me reset it.
2:31:07
National Grid Con Ed or other infrastructure work so that we can try to tear up people's streets less frequently.
Anastasios Georgelis
2:31:16
That's an area that I'm really concerned about.
2:31:21
Right?
2:31:21
I've I've seen it.
2:31:22
Everybody in New York can see it when a new street gets paved over and then somebody comes a couple months later and rips up the street.
2:31:28
Right?
2:31:28
That's bad city government.
2:31:29
Right?
2:31:30
So what the contracts, the grant contracts that do we do have, we've been coordinating with DOT where we try to give them notice what areas we're going to be focusing on in the coming year.
2:31:45
And what we try to coordinate is with their paving schedules, if it's an area that they're going to look to work on, we'll put it on hold for a year until we get the lead service line replaced.
2:31:55
And then the areas that are already on the street, we're trying to avoid the streets that were currently paved and try to get out of their protected street status.
2:32:03
So we have the schedule of when that street is gonna come out of protected street status, which generally is five years, and then we're gonna come and do the work after that.
Lincoln Restler
2:32:10
And have you been in conversation with the PSC and the entities they regulate?
2:32:14
My recollection was that director Steinberg from operations had been convening stakeholders around this issue?
2:32:18
I know this is like a white whale issue that many people have thought about over much time.
2:32:22
Ritz probably remembering previous administrations trying to fix this too.
2:32:26
Or commissioner, excuse me.
2:32:27
The that has that been a part of the conversation that's really been tailored to DOT and the repaving schedule?
Anastasios Georgelis
2:32:34
Currently, it's only DOT.
2:32:36
But that is something that I've had conversations with DOT on how we do it better.
2:32:42
We've looked at it in the past where we try to do not just the lit service lines, but any of the work that we have to do on the ground if we have to do repairs to try to get it done before DOT comes in to pave the streets.
Lincoln Restler
2:32:52
I think that's smart.
2:32:53
And DOT's got a pretty predictable calendar at this point for when they're in which community districts, and and and they do a pretty good job of planning which streets they're gonna do unless I get to them and force them to add a couple in our area.
Rohit Aggarwala
2:33:06
And and is it worth just talking about the Manhattan project we did?
Anastasios Georgelis
2:33:12
So last summer, we did pilot with DOT where we picked Manhattan.
2:33:19
And what we did was we kind of collectively worked with them.
2:33:24
When when they were gonna pave the street, we came in ahead of ahead of time and during the milling process where we came in and proactively replaced all of our hardware, our castings, and made repairs to anything that we did.
2:33:38
We did leak detection on the water mains with the intent to take care of anything, that we needed to do before the final, paving was done by DOT.
2:33:48
And that that is, I think, the goal that everybody wants us to see us do is when the city comes through to fix the street that it every we take care of everything, not just one aspect, but to take care of everything and minimize the ripping up of the streets after it's newly paved.