LOWER MERION – If anyone needed more proof that prices are continuing to go up, Lower Merion officials say those increases are showing in its yearly street milling and paving programs.
And as prices are going up, some needed materials are getting harder to find.
This past week, Lower Merion officials discussed the annual street milling and paving program during public works and finance committee meetings.
The two issues included for conversations were the list of streets to be done by the township and then to approve of a contract to purchase the materials, such as stone and asphalt, that are required for the work.
Commissioner Mike McKeon said the township has $1.5 million in the Capital Improvement Program for the work.
Some streets on the list include major roadways such as parts of Montgomery Avenue and Conshohocken State Road and smaller roads such as June Lane and Fawn Hill Lane.
“I was very happy to see Mary Waters Ford Road was on the paving list. It’s a very difficult road to drive down,” McKeon said. “It’s been a long time coming to get this done, so I was very happy to see that, and I’ve been contacted by a couple of residents in the Penn Valley area about some of these smaller secondary roads that are in really poor condition.”
Township officials said the actual milling and paving work would likely begin in July, but before any work can begin, the board has to approve the purchase of the materials needed. These materials are things like asphalt and stones.
Township officials say the increased prices for some materials and apparent shortages for others have caused problems.
“What these bid results show tonight is, as you can see, the rise in prices that we are seeing across a lot of different construction-related industries,” Eric Traub, Lower Merion’s chief financial officer, said.
According to Traub, there is an approximately $52,000 or 13.3 percent increase over the costs from last year.
Traub added that contractors have also had trouble getting some materials needed for projects, an issue they have never had in the township.
“We’ve reached out to a couple of bidders and what they’ve claimed is a lack of availability of stone,” he said.
Traub said they’ve been able to take advantage of existing contracts for some items and will go for new bids for other things. If they still don’t get any bids after another bidding round, the township would then be free to go out to companies and negotiate.
“At this point, with this one delivery that we’ve made and then the rest of the quantities being relatively minimal, we’re optimistic that we’ll be able to meet the needs that we need for road preparatory work and hopefully won’t be the cause of any delays,” he said.
