Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
Dade City's efforts to remove asphalt from a brick street have gone so well that the city will extend the test project.
By CHASE SQUIRES
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 11, 2001
DADE CITY -- When work crews peeled up the asphalt on a city street to reveal the bricks underneath earlier this month, the effort was so successful that city commissioners on Tuesday gave crews permission to continue the test project.
As the city considers removing the asphalt from historic brick streets in some neighborhoods, public works crews tested the process along a block of Church Avenue. Public works director Ron Ferguson, in a memo to commissioners, said the work went well.
Using a small front-end loader and some improvised tools, crews were able to peel a strip of asphalt away from the bricks without damaging the old street below, said City Manager Doug Drymon.
Drymon said it is estimated that crews will need about 35 more hours to remove all of the asphalt from the road. The work is expected to cost the city about $4,100, all of that coming from the public works budget.
Drymon said the city plans to leave asphalt at intersections, using concrete strips to soften the blow as cars travel from brick to asphalt and back to brick.
Commissioner Hutch Brock, who lives along the test section, said he was impressed with the pace of the work.
Drymon said the city still is reviewing options, including using prison labor, to speed the work.
Brock said that although it still is unclear how widespread the restoration effort will be, the work has its rewards.
"I really believe that although we may not be able to do it everywhere, where we can do it, it is absolutely going to add to the historic feel of the town," Brock said.
Many of the city's brick streets were paved with asphalt in the 1960s, and some streets that remained brick have fallen into disrepair.
City volunteer coordinator Linae Paulsen said volunteers have been working on brick streets in the Tank Hill neighborhood. Volunteers, working with Ferguson and Paulsen, dug up a rough section of road and removed a bump that had bothered neighborhood residents, Paulsen reported.
In other business, commissioners agreed that the city should try to work with county officials to encourage county employees at the new administration building to use the building's own lots for parking, rather than downtown streets.
A potential buyer for the Landmark Building at the corner of Meridian Avenue and Fifth Street said he has been dismayed by the number of employees who take up on-street parking that could serve shoppers instead.
Commissioners said they might ask county officials to ask their employees to park in the lots constructed for the building rather than on the street.