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Street and Sidewalk Construction

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pickleberry

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Hi all

I live in a recently constructed condo. As part of the project, the developer reconstructed all the sidewalks around the building using a pale concrete, and added planters with coloured bricks between them. All in all, a nice job.

In the past few weeks there has been construction on the street and contractors needed to dig through the sidewalk to make their repairs to pipes below.
They have now finished their work - but sadly they have filled in their (sizeable) holes in the sidewalk using black tarmac, and have not done a good job of it - it's uneven and messy. Several of the coloured bricks between the planters are missing and have been filled in with the tarmac.
It's quite a sizeable chunk of sidewalk that has been 'replaced', and as it's right at a corner it really does make the street look poor and messy. It wastes the investment our developer put into the street to improve the sidewalk which is used by the entire neighbourhood.

Does anyone know if the city/contractor has an obligation to repair the sidewalk to the standard of before - bearing in mind the sidewalk before was in perfect condition and was less than 18 months old?
It seems such a shame as the sidewalk was in such good condition, and now it's a total mess and the flaky tarmac will need regular maintenance.

Thanks
 
Whenever the ground is dug up and refilled, it must settle or compact somewhat before the finishing material is put on. This is why in new developments, the driveways are usually left bare with maybe gravel for a year, before the finishing asphalt or paving material is put on. Otherwise, it will crack and drop.
That is also why a roadway has what looks like raised manholes or edges. It is so the roadway will settle for a time. Another layer is then added to make it level after the settling time.
Putting in the asphalt in sidewalks is done to allow the ground underneath to settle for a time before concrete is put in. Otherwise the sidewalk will crack sooner than later.
 
My next door neighbour had a messy piece of sidewalk in front of his house and called his local councillor and asked to have it fixed. It took about 6 months but they came and fixed it.
 
In the past few weeks there has been construction on the street and contractors needed to dig through the sidewalk to make their repairs to pipes below.
Click to expand...

They've been doing this all along Yonge, too. It's so very pretty.
 
Oh so very pretty....

RhkzGPtxGcvv579oCxbt7l3U_500.jpg
 
I think from the next street south of this photo (Elm Street?) was already repaired this past summer
 
Yes, this was taken shortly after they put up the new street lights and before they redid the whole sidewalk at the beginning of summer.

That being said there are plenty of sidewalks in the city where this is the norm.
 
This is one of my big pet peeves. While it’s true that the stretch of Yonge street shown above has been redone it’s only a matter of time before it turns into an ugly patchwork again (they are starting to install new gas lines starting from Bloor). The best solution would be for the City to use paving stones instead of poured concrete. Paving stones can easily be removed for utility work and then returned to their original place after work is complete. Paving stones also do a better job of camouflaging the ugly Gum marks.
 
Good old utility cuts! As W. K Lis said, this will give the disturbed native material time to settle before final hard surface restoration is done. I don't know how Toronto works but in the municipality that I work for, we have our own contractor do these final restorations. We get better quality control this way but there is a delay in scheduling these jobs, therefore it could takes months to be finished. If the work is done on City property, get in touch with the Works and Transportation Department to ensure that it is not forgotten.
 
Peepers said:
This is one of my big pet peeves. While it’s true that the stretch of Yonge street shown above has been redone it’s only a matter of time before it turns into an ugly patchwork again (they are starting to install new gas lines starting from Bloor). The best solution would be for the City to use paving stones instead of poured concrete. Paving stones can easily be removed for utility work and then returned to their original place after work is complete. Paving stones also do a better job of camouflaging the ugly Gum marks.
Click to expand...

Maybe they should do what Paris does, they make all the sidewalks out of asphalt. You don't see the patches or the gum and the asphalt is much nicer to walk on because it has some give to it. We'd probably save millions a year in healthcare costs when it comes to backs and hips. It's also better for strollers, wheelchairs, bladers and those !%*/?!cyclists on the sidewalks.
 
androiduk said:
Maybe they should do what Paris does, they make all the sidewalks out of asphalt. You don't see the patches or the gum and the asphalt is much nicer to walk on because it has some give to it. We'd probably save millions a year in healthcare costs when it comes to backs and hips. It's also better for strollers, wheelchairs, bladers and those !%*/?!cyclists on the sidewalks.
Click to expand...

They'd probably patch the asphalt with concrete pavers :rolleyes:
 
I'm sure they'll get to it soon. In my part of town they replaced many streets of 100-year old gas mains in the Spring - and the gas lines all run under the sidewalk. So we had asphalt patches down the centre of the sidewalk all summer. In August we got nice new concrete sidewalks everywhere. City is quite efficient with these things really.
 
URBAN!TY said:
Good God that photo looks like Johannesburg in 2001 or something. Yikes...
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Ha ha. That was very astute, urban!ty!

I was going to say that the Yonge street strip looks kind of like some third rate British high street in a Midlands chavopolis, but I think you just hit it out of the park!
 
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