The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, All Within A Few Hundred Feet Of One Block

The smooth and the cracked, inches apart

The paving contractor for National Grid's gas line replacement project here in Hudson has been busy for the past couple of weeks. Yesterday, they finished paving over National Grid's trench on the south side of the 700 block of Columbia Street -- from just east of Park Place to about Lil' Deb's restaurant. The contractor, Bob Talham, Inc, is not here to replace just any of Hudson's cracked and troubled streets, only strips 10 or 12 feet from the curbs to replace what was temporarily covering all the trenches now holding our new plastic natural gas pipes.

Here are pictures of a still-badly cracked Columbia Street, inches from the edge of the new strip of asphalt Bob Talham, Inc. laid down for us two days ago. Cracks in pavement, especially as bad as those shown here, are the sure sign of the beginning of the end, particularly along a street full of enormous, heavy trucks and non-stop traffic.

The good and the bad

The pretty and the ugly

While Robert Perry likely didn't ask Bob Talham to repave an additional 8 inches into the middle of the 700 block of Columbia Street to replace the badly cracked and failing street with smooth and solid asphalt, it doesn't require much imagination to come up with Talham's likely response had Perry asked for the favor.

"Do it yourself with your own money, machinery and workers! Sorry, not our problem!"  And justifiably so.

The solid and the failing, inches apart