Road resurfacing leads to complaints
Springfield Township roads have been surfaced with the same product for the past decade, and until now, residents have not approached township officials with any complaints.
But a job finished last month has township officials and the residents of an Erdenheim neighborhood wondering what, if anything, could have gone wrong.
Residents from the Chesney Downs neighborhood brought a petition to the Oct. 14 meeting of the Springfield Township Board of Commissioners requesting a second look at the coarse and rough surface that resulted from a coating of Ralumac applied on the roads in September.
Many said the roads looked unfinished, and they were concerned that having an unattractive road, one unsuitable for riding bikes and driving cars, would hurt the quality of life they currently enjoy.
“I think we have a very strong argument that something was a little off the way it was applied in our neighborhood,” Michael Seaman, one of the residents at the meeting, said Tuesday. “The township has been very receptive to hearing what we’ve had to say. We have every expectation that the township is going to do something to fix the problem. And there definitely is a problem.”
Ralumac has been used in Springfield and about four other local communities for the past decade, Township Manager Don Berger said Monday.
The substance, which he likened to a driveway sealant, keeps out moisture and provides a skid-resistant surface.
Once applied, Ralumac dries as a rough layer meant to flatten with use, and it has previously been used on cul-de-sacs and dead-ends in the township, he said.
“What took us by surprise is we have never had complaints before,” board of commissioners President Jeff Harbison said Tuesday.
The township will engage the Asphalt Institute of America and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s local technical assistance program to inspect the roads during the next few weeks, Berger said.
Those organizations will determine if it is proper to use Ralumac on a side street and if the original job was done correctly.
After hearing the recommendations, the township commissioners will decide on an appropriate action.
“What you don’t want them to say is, ‘Oh, it’s fine, don’t worry about it,’” Harbison said.
He would rather receive a recommendation to roll the streets, or some another solution to the problem, he said.
Before the Ralumac was applied, half of the streets in Chesney Downs were repaved due to age. Then, one uniform surface of ralumac was laid over the seams between the old and new road.
Ralumac is about 40 to 45 percent the cost of a resurfacing project, Berger said.
“We didn’t have any sense that Ralumac was inferior in any way, shape or form, so why spend more money?” Harbison said.
The Ralumac was laid down in two areas of Chesney Downs , with 10 days between applications. Residents were not pleased with the first outcome.
“It’s very different from what a road would look like, and people were immediately under the impression it wasn’t done yet,” Seaman said.
It blew residents away, because it was an outcome they didn’t expect “living in a nice place like Springfield Township,” he added.
Some also think the smell of the road is off and have brought in an environmental consultant to look at a possible environmental impact of the road, he said.
Neighbors on Glendalough and Avondale roads began talking about the roads with one another and decided to get a sense of how the rest of the neighborhood felt.
Seaman said everyone he spoke with thought the roads were ugly and rough, and the residents put together a petition, knocking on every door at least once, amounting to about 130 households.
About 91 percent of those they spoke with signed the petition, and about 14 of those families came to the board of commissioners meeting, he said.
“We feel really strongly about it — it’s not something we want to let go,” Seaman said.
At the meeting, residents said Ralumac was an inappropriate product to use on the road. One woman brought her daughter, who said children playing outside have been hurt by the coarse surface.
Another woman said she was one of the nine residents in the neighborhood who like the job, and the cover makes the road safer during inclement weather. She said she would oppose spending more taxpayer money to repave the roads.
Resident John McSherry Jr. said Monday that the township’s work has been satisfactory in the past, but he compared the new road to sandpaper.
“The surface is totally incompatible with residential-area streets,” he said, adding that the neighborhood has a 5K run every fall. “My main point was these roads were perfectly suitable and perfectly suitable the way they were in February. There was definitely no need to spend money to resurface them.”
After hearing the concerns of Chesney Downs residents, Harbison polled people living on streets that received Ralumac treatment two years ago, the 500 block of Cresheim Valley Road and the 500 block of Wyndmoor Avenue.
Those residents were fine with their roads, he said.
“We’re all trying to figure this out together. It’s not going to be smooth when it goes down. It needs traffic to make it smooth,” he added.
Seaman said he has visited Cresheim Valley Road, and that it’s similar, but not quite as “rough and ugly” as the Chesney Downs project.
“We pay a heck of a lot of taxes in Springfield Township, and we just want a normal road that’s black and flat, to take a child to ride a bike on,” he said.
The neighbors plan to be at the next board of commissioners meeting to learn about the progress of the study, he said.