The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday voted unanimously to extend a contract with a Norwalk-based company for the repaving of two roads in New Canaan that public works officials say need it the most.
The $758,000 extension with FGB Construction will is for the paving of Field Crest Road and Village Drive, both located off of Farm Road opposite Saxe Middle School, as well as drainage and sidewalk improvements.
They’re two of five New Canaan roads—with Brinckerhoff Avenue, Lockwood Avenue and Mortimer Street—that had been scheduled for repaving around the time Eversource brought natural gas to town. So, the work was put off until the utility came through, according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann.
The residents of Field Crest and Village who wanted to access natural gas have done so and “they are very much in favor of having this road done, especially considering it was torn up for gas lines and then Aquarion came in and put up an entirely new water main service there,” Mann said.
“It is arguably the worst road in town, or one of the worst roads in town, and we would like to complete the work this year,” he said at the meeting, held via videoconference.
First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectmen Kathleen Corbet and Nick Williams voted 3-0 in favor of the contract extension. Funds are included in the approved paving budget.
The selectmen asked whether the project would be reimbursed by Eversource (no), how long it’s been since the roads have been done (probably 40 years) and what is the pavement condition index or “PCI” of New Canaan roads right now (about 84).
Asked whether that PCI is a good figure given all the utility work in town, Mann said, “Considering what we have been through, yes.”
“If you get outside of town, our PCI is excellent. It’s just the inroads in town, the 20 miles or so that have been been affected. The major arterials were just completed—[Route] 106 they just paved, so that’s much nicer, and we are looking to doing exactly what we did here on Field Crest and Village and try to accelerate some of the areas that will no longer be affected by Eversource gas and bring those to the forefront and have them paved sooner rather than later instead of waiting for the three-year moratorium.”
FGB Construction has done “excellent work for us,” Mann said.
“They just completed the Waveny road, the high school road connecting Waveny park with the high school,” he said. “I think our goal was to make it look like it has always been there and people would question why it had not been installed previously and I think we accomplished that, in no small part to their efforts.”