Welcome To Hudson, The City of Two-Toned Streets

Our new, two-tone Warren Street, made 
narrower in perception only

With two fresh strips of asphalt on each side of the 400 and 500 blocks of Warren Street, we now have a three-striped, two-tone street.  This was forced on us by National Grid who got their orders from the NY State Department of Public Service to replace their natural gas infrastructure.  I imagine this work will be going on for several years since there is no reason to believe that under every street and into every building in town there needs to be new plastic gas pipes installed to replace the old metal pipes.  What we are seeing is just the beginning, but you wouldn't know it since our dear DPW Superintendent is averse to talking at length about National Grid's project when he bothers mentioning anything about it.

Back to our new two-tone Warren Street. While the street is no less wide physically (still at about 40 feet), the new darker shade on either side will give drivers the impression of a narrower street.  Should I stay in the "middle"? Can I drive on the darker portion? Why are there different colors to the pavement? Where exactly is my traffic lane?  Even subconsciously, drivers will stay away from the darker portions of the pavement which create a PERCEPTUALLY NARROWER STREET.  A perceptually narrower street is a more dangerous street, prone to accidents of the head-on/corner-to-corner variety.

Your brain will tell you to stay
 off the darker pavement if you can!

Time will tell if there is an increase in accidents on Warren as a result of the new street color pattern. Fortunately, we'll have years of data to utilize -- this is what we are stuck with until the entire street is repaved some decades from now.

Don't you just love the huge cracks in the 400 block of Warren adjacent to the new pavement provided by the paving contractor Talham, Inc?!!  "Sorry, our contract says we are to only replace a ten-foot width on each side of the street!  Repair or replace those cracks yourself when we are done paving the street inches from them!"

Notice how far from the curb this car
was parked.

For the past 10 months (and well into the future), Hudson's streets -- our streets, DPW's streets -- have been dug up, worked on and under and replaced by at least the following four companies as part of National Grid's gas line replacement project: Reconn Utility Services; National Grid; Bob Talham, Inc.; and Mullen & Sons, Inc. Our DPW has little say in what they all do, only issuing street permits giving permission to dig, remove our streets and replace them.  One wonders if Mr. Perry or anyone else at DPW even bothers inspecting the work these contractors do when they claim to be finished.

Repaving of the 200 block of State Street 
is scheduled to begin Monday

I urge anyone with some free time this weekend to walk the sidewalks along both sides of the 200 block of State Street and consider the condition of the entire street.  Beginning this Monday, Talham will be creating a similar two-tone street there, same as on Warren Street, covering up National Grid's trench work which they spent so much time on last year.  Of course, all the patches, cracks and crumbling pavement in the middle of the street will remain untouched, only to continue to worsen.  And, also like the three blocks of Warren Street recently repaved, the block will appear narrower to drivers, making the street more dangerous.  The entire block needs to be redone, not just a ten-foot width on each side! 

A mess that will be partially repaired and 
turned into a two-tone street

Do you think Robert Perry gives a hoot?  Do you think he has given one second of thought to this?  Please let me know how he responds if you are able to track him down and get an answer out of him!  Tell him Bill sent you.

N. 5th, looking sharp!  This is now a 
compromised block of pavement that will 
soon begin to come apart.

Almost unbelievably, today at noon on Warren east of 4th Street, I came across Mullen workers covering a hole they had just dug in the new asphalt that probably wasn't even completely cooled since Talham finished their paving work last night or early this morning. A Mullen worker told me that they would probably have to dig another hole in the new asphalt further west in the 300 block! I asked the workers if they had to dig to retrieve a tool they left behind weeks ago when they were last there. "A shovel, perhaps?" I inquired. "Yeah, that's it. A shovel," one worker replied.

I didn't see anyone today from DPW having a look at what National Grid's contractor Mullen was doing with National Grid's other contractor Talham's new asphalt on our Warren Street. No, Robert Perry was nowhere to be seen. Big surprise there!

OOPS!  We forgot something!

The first patch on the patch, and it only took a 
few hours to appear.  Robert Perry recently 
claimed at a meeting that Mullen would be 
finishing up on Warren in "early May."