Monessen may seek grant for Parente Boulevard

The multimodal grant would pave the road while adding a walking track and bike path to the area.

During Monessen council’s work session last week, members discussed the possibility of applying for a multimodal grant that would pave Parente Boulevard and add a walking track and biking path.

The Multimodal Transportation Fund Grant would come from the Commonwealth Financing Authority. Mayor Ron Mozer said this would be the perfect opportunity to pave the pothole-ridden road at no cost to the city and taxpayers.

But some council members raised concerns regarding the proposed project. Councilmen John Nestor and Anthony Orzechowski both stated that if completed, the project could ultimately add an additional burden to the city’s street department.

“Has anybody spoken to the street crew and the parks crew, seeing how they are planning to maintain all that green space?” Nestor asked.

Orzechowski also raised concerns regarding snow plowing during the winter on the newly renovated road and the potential of more trash issues with the addition of receptacles along Parente Boulevard. Orzechowski added that the proposed project, which would be paid for by the grant, would include $400,000 in park benches.

Nestor asked Mozer how he would convince city residents that the upgraded Parente Boulevard would be of benefit to them.

“How are you going to be able to convince citizens of Monessen that it’s good for them, and why their streets aren’t done?” Nestor said. “I know that this is a grant for a different project, but you’re going to have a lot of people saying, ‘Well, Parente is done. Why isn’t Leeds done?”

Mozer responded to Nestor by contending that what he said didn’t make sense.

“So we don’t do anything because we can’t do it all at once? That makes no sense at all,” Mozer said.

Nestor once again reiterated that the public would have to be convinced about the project.

“You’re going to have to really sell this to the public, because you’re going to have a lot of people that you and I spoke to about this from last year, was not thrilled about this,” Nestor said to Mozer. “They said there’s more streets that are worse than on Parente.”

Linda Lacey, a Monessen resident, spoke up during the meeting, stating that as long as the road is paved, it doesn’t matter to her how it happened.

“I think if you’re going to get it paved for free, then who cares about a bike lane?” Lacey said to council. “If you’re going to do it for free, put in a bike lane, put in the benches, maybe they want to take a break.”

Orzechowski emphasized that the project needs to be thought out so that the city can avoid having it become an issue in the future.

Mozer told the Independent that the proposed project, which he’s hoping to include in the grant application, would make Parente Boulevard a two-lane road instead of a four-lane.

“Completely remove the concrete road, replace that with one lane up, one lane down, a bike path on one side, and a walking track on the other,” he said. “There will be places where you can stop and rest when you’re walking up the hill, benches to sit down on, and whatnot, but something attractive that the city can be proud of.”

Mozer emphasized that there are no grants to simply pave roads, and that the walking track and bike path are essential for this type of grant to be approved.

“Nobody’s going to give you money just to redo the road. They’d say, ‘Go find the money yourself,” Mozer said.

When asked if there was another city road that could use the grant, Mozer said Parente would be the best fit.

“I cannot to this day, I cannot think of another place you can do this on,” he said. “Where do we have enough room to put two lanes, a bicycle path, and a walking path? It just doesn’t work anywhere else, not on Grand (Boulevard), not on Third Street, not on any of the streets I’m aware of.”

Mozer said that they frequently get complaints asking why certain roads aren’t paved, and others are. The mayor used Community Development Block Grant funds as an example to explain why that happens.

“We use CDBG funds to pave Pollard, just a whole bunch of roads that are over on the east side of Third Street and we got a written complaint from a lady that lives on Crest, ‘How come you paved Helen and Pollard and all these other streets over there, and you didn’t pave my street? My street is the big street that we pay lots of taxes on,’ and that was the key thing,” Mozer said. “‘We pay lots of taxes.’ The point is, CDBG is not for streets like that. They are for low-income areas. You have to prove that over 50% of the people fall within 80% or below the average income for the area.”

Mozer noted that he’s tried to do something similar for Knox Avenue, but said none of the residents on that street would fill out a form that asks for income information and other related details.

Mozer said the next step for the multimodal grant is for council to approve a motion to proceed with the application, which he hopes will happen during their next meeting. He added that if the city applies this year, officials probably won’t find out if they got the grant till next year.