A city-owned street paver broke down Tuesday and was thought to be out of commission for three to four weeks. However, evaluation of the machine Thursday morning produced a shorter repair time frame, 10 to 12 days, according to Alderman at Large Kevin Kirchberger, chair of the Common Council’s Highway & Parks committee.
The machine stopped working on Pine Street between High and Willow streets, where paving was in progress.
The estimated repair tab is $30,000. Currently the machine is under repair at Milton CAT in Tonawanda.
During the down time, Kirchberger said, employees of Highways and Parks will concentrate on other tasks such as brush pick-up. Once the paver is back on the road, he added, all of them will be needed to finish milling and paving work and they will likely work later hours to finish off nine streets.
Milled roadway that awaits paving include segments of Pine, High, Spalding, Evans and South Niagara streets, Continental, Independence and O’Brien drives, and Millar Place.
“We want to get Pine between High and Willow (first), where the paver stopped working, because school is about to start. So that’s the highest priority,” Kirchberger said.
Overall, street repairs will be about a week behind schedule, Kirchberger said.