Laurel Park residents ask for brick street repair

A brick-paved street can lend a distinct character to a neighborhood, but as residents in Laurel Park have discovered, it comes with challenges.

Hawkins Court, located on the east side of Laurel Park between Osprey Avenue and U.S. 301, is an unusually shaped street. There are two U-shaped portions on either end, and a straight line connects them. Resident Alice Sundstrom described it as like a stick figure with its hands up.

Most — but not all — of Hawkins Court is lined with bricks. Those bricks have shifted over the years, and some have been removed altogether to make room for utility repairs or other projects. As a result, the street is a bumpy ride for vehicles and an increasingly pressing issue for residents.

“It needs a lot of repair,” Sundstrom said. “There are huge pot holes. Neighbors go out and weed the street.”

A similar issue arose on another brick-paved street in Laurel Park  a few years ago. In 2009, residents on a block of Rawls Street complained about issues with uneven bricks. They were able to fix the problems themselves, laying new bricks as part of a community project.

Sundstrom, president of the Laurel Park Neighborhood Association, explored the possibility of undertaking a similar effort on Hawkins Court. Unfortunately, she said, laying bricks on Hawkins would be a much larger undertaking — one that couldn’t be carried out in just one afternoon like it was on Rawls Street,  where there are fewer residences.

“There are so many people who wouldn’t have access to their driveways,” Sundstrom said.

As a result, residents on Hawkins Court are now working with city staff in hopes of expediting repairs to the street. Although Sundstrom praised the city’s efforts to help, it’s unlikely there will be money available to repair the problematic portions of the road before the fiscal year comes to an end in September.

Mike DelRossi, the city’s general manager of public services, said the city identifies 60 or 70 roads to resurface annually. Staff works with a company called Transmap Corp., which identifies deteriorating streets, to determine which roads to improve in a given year. Resident and staff input helps round out the list of streets to repair. In 2016-17, the city budgeted $1.8 million for road resurfacing.

DelRossi said the actual cost for resurfacing those roads has been close to the money budgeted, which means there wasn’t enough left over to address the issues on Hawkins Court. He said brick-paved streets are particularly challenging to repair. Crews have to take the bricks out, level the base beneath the bricks and reinstall the bricks, making sure everything fits.

“The cost to redo the brick — it looks nice, but we didn’t have it in the budget,” DelRossi said.

Still, the missing and raised bricks pose a safety issue. DelRossi doesn’t think the conditions are necessarily dire on Hawkins Court, but he says it would be ideal if the road could be restored to a better condition. Luckily, he believes the city should be able to address the problem during the next fiscal year, which means repairs could begin in October or November.

Although Sundstrom and other Hawkins Court residents would prefer to see improvements even sooner, they’re happy to see the city taking steps to fix their brick street.

“I think the city’s very receptive to this,” Sundstrom said. “It’s just a matter of timing and money.”