West 7th road mystery solved

Mystery solved, sort of, one month later.

So, a month ago I posted a brief item on Plainfield Today about the mysterious signs appearing along West 7th Street. Posted by the Union County Police (it is a county roadway), they banned parking on two days in late August.

But nothing ever happened.

Then yesterday, a crew materialized from nowhere and started milling and paving along the roadway, beginning at Spooner Avenue and working eastward.

Strangely, they are not milling the entire roadway, but a strip about a car's width down the middle of one side of the roadway, keeping a swath about three feet wide from the curb untouched.

It's not possible to tell whether they are just going to do two stips down the roadway like that, or how far the job will extend. All very strange, but definitely giving the impression of an "el cheapo" undertaking.

This is the third time in over thirty years that the roadway has been done. The first, shortly after we moved to Plainfield, was a complete curb-to-curb mill and pave that was well done and lasted about ten years.

The second time around, it was done in three courses, which looked OK at first, but within a year began to deteriorate along the seams, leaving a rut where they met. Definitely not as good a job as the first time around.

And now, ???

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  -- Dan Damon [follow]

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