Water Street Repairs to Begin Before Thanksgiving

Agreeing that the borough needed to move on repairing the crumbling roadway along the edges of Water Street so that it could be reopened to traffic, the Tinton Falls Borough Council agreed to patch up the most critically eroded area.

The council was presented with two scenarios for fixing Water Street, which crumbled in August in two sections, by Borough Engineer David Marks at the workshop portion of its Tuesday meeting. After a lengthy discussion, council members chose the less expensive option as it would allow work to begin sooner and agreed to support an emergency resolution at the Oct. 18 meeting to begin the process.

Tucker Snedeker, who lives on Water Street, told council prior to the workshop that he and his neighbors have been frustrated by the "lack of communication" from the borough about the timing of repairs and anticipated reopening of the road.

Borough Administrator Gerry Turning apologized for the delay and said that the scope of the project kept rising as the borough discovered the extent of damage to the roadway. "In order to get it fixed properly, it's going to cost a ton of money."

"It just took a little longer than we thought," said Turning of assessing the damaged roadway that bends along Pine Brook beneath a guardrail.

The approximately $500,000 repair would focus on the 75-foot section of roadway that is collapsing into the neighboring brook. Marks said, "The erosion issue extends beyond what we see," and explained that the gap developing underneath the roadway is "cavernous."

The slope supporting the roadway has failed, said Marks, and needs to be rebuilt and stabilized.

Marks estimated that it should take about 30 days from the official council approval for design and documentation for the project to be completed and about two to three weeks worth of work.

The money for repair will be paid off over a five-year period beginning next year, said Steve Pfeffer, the borough's chief financial officer.

The borough would also seek reimbursement for repairs from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Turning.

Marks said it wasn't Hurricane Irene that damaged the road that the county had performed work on only 18 months ago, but the four-inches of rain that came down in a two-hour period the week before the hurricane that caused all the damage.

Councilman Steve Schertz, who lives in the neighborhood, said he'd never seen the brook that high in the 19 years that he's lived there.

The council opted to hold off on the more extensive, and costly, repairs that would address a larger portion of Water Street but with a possible $2 million price tag.

The council and members of the administration debated whether the borough should take on the greater debt or if they were being, as Schertz pointed out, "Penny wise and pound foolish." Ultimately, it was the need to start work before winter weather set in that drove the decision. The larger project would require more permits and bidding and keep the section of roadway closed longer.

In the meantime, concrete barriers installed to stop traffic are causing cars to turn around in Snedeker's driveway "every 10 minutes."

Mayor Michael Skudera, who also lives in the area, said to Snedeker, "I feel your pain."