Asphalt

No matter how many times we've heard Philadelphia described as William Penn's "greene countrie towne," we know the reality is rather different. Cities are cities because once-verdant land is relentlessly paved and covered over time. That's how we civilize our world. It's also how we mess it up. Every time the skies let forth a deluge, as they did with particular intensity this week, the city's asphalt-sealed streets and parking lots become churning torrents. The rain cascades to the nearest sewer outlet, picking up salts and oils along the way and overwhelming the underground system.

It started in spring 1989. Some Pine Hill residents began to notice that trees in a wooded area behind their homes were being cut down and that huge chunks of broken asphalt had begun piling up on a 50-acre site at Cross Keys Road and Atlantic Avenue. The property, owned by Charles DeSorte of DeSorte Associates, a supplier of asphalt for road construction and repairs, was beginning to look like a dump site for discarded debris, said Robert Blew, a Pine Hill resident whose property abuts the site.

Amid allegations that Monroe Township overspent thousands of taxpayer dollars on asphalt purchases, officials are trying to learn how much would have been saved had the township participated in a county purchasing plan. Earlier this month, the township commissioned a study of asphalt purchases made since 1988. The move was spurred by county roads director Joseph LaPorta, who said that $100,000 too much was spent because supply contracts were not awarded by bid. Public Works Director James Agnesino said last week that the township learned only this year that a purchasing contract with the county had expired in 1989.

More than 20 Sunset Avenue residents voiced displeasure at a Chalfont Borough Council meeting Tuesday over plans by an asphalt contractor to move into their neighborhood. The residents said they were surprised to learn that the Chalfont Planning Commission had recently given preliminary approval to a plan by American Quality Construction Co. to establish its headquarters on Sunset Avenue. Dave Schutt of 115 Sunset Ave. said that neighborhood residents did not learn about the asphalt contractor's plans until last week and would do all they could to prevent the move.

Citizens Against Pollution (CAP), a newly formed local environmental group, petitioned the West Deptford Township Committee last night to block future operation of a 10,000-barrel asphalt storage tank at the Coastal Eagle Point Oil Refinery on Route 130. The tank, built and operated by Coastal in August without Planning Board approval, has raised a storm of controversy over the last five months. The township shut down the tank in September and fined the Houston-based oil company $5,000.

Sure, the Flyers rule the ice, gap toothed and grim in their determination to win the Stanley Cup over that bunch from Detroit. But this isn't ice, and Lindros & Co. aren't here, not on this late afternoon, not on this contested patch of Center City asphalt. And not on this four-member squad, where an investment banker, computer consultant, jewelry maker and aspiring hockey star - ages 27, 41, 18 and 8, respectively - circle and spin around two squashed trash cans. They have wheels on their feet, fire in their eyes.

Mother Nature has supplied the perfect formula (snow-rain-ice-thaw-snow-cold-thaw) to create a lifetime's worth of potholes in one spring. Reports of cars disappearing in some of these potholes are erroneous. State experts explain that a hole big enough to swallow a car is no longer called a pothole. It's called a cave-in. Whatever, the highway people say their people are out there filling the worst craters as soon as possible after they erupt, or disrupt. Perhaps some facts can defuse the good-humored cynicism of Inquirer letter writer Rosemarie Allen, who wondered - given Mayor Rendell's philosophy on blizzards and side streets - whether His Honor's pothole solution would be "piles of free macadam for neighborhood residents" to shovel themselves.

A Bridgeton asphalt company that Gloucester County freeholders sued last year, alleging fraudulent billing, will pay $40,000 to settle the lawsuit, according to attorneys for the county. In the settlement, South State Inc., a vendor of highway construction materials, and the Board of Freeholders have agreed to drop the civil action against each other regarding the purchase and delivery of asphalt and an oil, called tack, applied between layers of blacktop. The county accused the company in August 1998 of delivering low-bid specifications to the highway department and then overcharging for the delivery of asphalt once it was awarded the bid. According to the lawsuit, which had sought an unspecified amount in compensatory damages, the fraud took place between 1983 and 1994.

To fix the drainage woes on what was billed as a state-of-the-art field at Veterans Stadium, city and team officials have come up with an exceedingly low-tech solution. Asphalt. "We're all very excited about this," Rick Tustin, director of Philadelphia's Capital Programs Office, said yesterday. "Everybody tested it and walked on it and said it was fine. " Last Monday, the Eagles' preseason opener was canceled because the Vet's new NeXturf surface was deemed unplayable.

PennDot crews are at work on a $250,000 project to resurface a length of Chestnut Street - the same stretch of roadway city engineers plan to tear apart next year. The Mayor's Office appealed to state officials to hold off so all that asphalt would not go to waste, but PennDot went ahead anyway, city and state officials said yesterday. In the end, the state transportation agency granted one concession, agreeing in July to lay a thinner-than-usual coat on the Chestnut Street transitway.

  THE PROBLEM: In April, a visitor to the City Howl Web site ( www.thecityhowl.net ) posted an unfavorable review of the Streets Department, citing the number of unrepaired potholes in South Philly. The stretch of Oregon Avenue between 9th and 24th streets, the user wrote, was especially bad, filled with "not just potholes, but sink holes. " WHAT WE DID: We started by taking a ride along Oregon between 9th and 24th in early May. We didn't find much, other than one long stretch of holes between 21st and 22nd streets that had been almost entirely repaired.

After the recent bad weather, Mayor Nutter knew that getting people excited about putting white stuff on their roofs might be a tough sell. "But this is a different kind of material," he said with a brief laugh yesterday. He was talking not about snow, but about reflective coatings - the kind that could turn Philadelphia's rooftops from a sea of searing black to an ocean of cool white. Nutter was launching a citywide block contest to promote the coatings, which not only can make a house cooler but also, according to the latest research, potentially can make entire neighborhoods and cities cooler.

The number of bicyclists using Pine and Spruce Streets in Center City has nearly doubled since temporary bike lanes were added in September, according to the Bicycle Coalition of Philadelphia. Volunteers measured bike traffic at four intersection before and after the traffic stripes were added to transfer a car lane's worth of asphalt to bicyclists. According to the coalition, westbound bike traffic on Spruce Street rose by 85 percent while eastbound bike traffic on Pine Street grew by 112 percent.

The University of Pennsylvania will begin construction today of its epic 24-acre Penn Park, the centerpiece of its 30-year master plan involving land it acquired from the U.S. Postal Service in 2004. The $46 million riverfront development project on the eastern edge of campus will include athletic fields, tennis courts, bike trails, and a multilevel elevated walk. It will increase the urban university's green space by 20 percent. Replacing bland asphalt lots and an old industrial site, the project will help to transform the landscape of West Philadelphia, and link the university's main campus with bustling Center City.

Was it music? Was it intentional? Accidental? Those were the questions from passengers lined up for Track 7 at lunchtime yesterday at 30th Street Station when New York City's Asphalt Orchestra launched a guerrilla-style debut in Philadelphia. Cameras were fished out of bags. Eyes squinted toward the area between the Quik-Trak machines and the men's washroom as the intricacies of Frank Zappa's nervy and intense "Zomby Woof" bounced around the station's ultra-live acoustic. "It's good, but, my God, it's overpowering," said one retirement-age woman from Connecticut (who asked not to be named)

No matter how many times we've heard Philadelphia described as William Penn's "greene countrie towne," we know the reality is rather different. Cities are cities because once-verdant land is relentlessly paved and covered over time. That's how we civilize our world. It's also how we mess it up. Every time the skies let forth a deluge, as they did with particular intensity this week, the city's asphalt-sealed streets and parking lots become churning torrents. The rain cascades to the nearest sewer outlet, picking up salts and oils along the way and overwhelming the underground system.

A 14-acre stretch of former U.S. Postal Service parking lots in West Philadelphia is set to get a green makeover, transforming it to open space and athletic fields. The University of Pennsylvania announced yesterday that it would spend $40 million to convert the asphalt lots into Penn Park, consisting of open space, four athletic fields, a dozen tennis courts, and other features. Combined with existing athletic fields, the park will total 24 acres, officials said. The area - bounded by Walnut Street, South Street, the Schuylkill, and the university's main campus - will be designed by landscape architects Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, officials said.

True to his name, Alex Bonavitacola is still living the good life. At 77, the former president judge of the Court of Common Pleas is trim and muscular - the happy consequence of 15 minutes of daily weightlifting and a 2 1/2-mile walk in FDR Park. Known to generations of Philadelphians as "The Lakes," FDR Park, at the far end of Broad Street and just north of the Navy Yard in South Philadelphia, is the retired judge's 348-acre backyard. He lives in a Packer Park rowhouse 2 1/2 blocks away.

A once-in-a-decade resurfacing project on the Schuylkill Expressway will mean overnight lane shutdowns and stretches of bumpy road for much of the next four months. Highway crews will begin the $8.1 million, 12-mile repaving and crack-repair job on Monday, said Les Toaso, PennDot's district executive for Philadelphia and its suburbs. Both the eastbound and westbound sides will be repaved from Route 1 (City Avenue) to I-476 (the Blue Route), then from Route 202 to Croton Road in Upper Merion Township.

What is a turnpike worth? The answer to that billion-dollar question is critical in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where venerable state-owned toll roads now are being viewed less as ribbons of commerce than as streams of revenue. Political leaders in both states are considering leasing the toll roads to private operators. What the states receive is clear: lots of cash. What they lose is the subject of intense debate. Estimates of the roads' value vary wildly - from $2 billion to $30 billion for the Pennsylvania Turnpike and from $12 billion to $38 billion or more for the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway.