Less than a year after Scranton City Council approved Mayor Paige Cognetti's downtown streetscape plan, the first finished section was celebrated Wednesday along Lackawanna Avenue.
"Our goal with all of this public infrastructure investment throughout the whole city, stormwater projects included, parks included, but very much so the streetscapes work downtown is to have public investment alongside the private investment,” Cognetti said. “We want the city to not just look nice, we want it to be safe.”
She and other city, county and state representatives held a blue ribbon in the 600 block of Lackawanna Avenue, which was snipped by Morgan Fetsock, the city’s engineering project coordinator.
"Morgan really spearheads a lot of our stormwater and public works pieces, the stuff that goes unseen," Cognetti said.
The group stood on new sidewalks in front of a now-sturdy retaining wall that was crumbling for years.
"It was in such disrepair for so long. It's such an important piece of Scranton, right? So to see it be revamped like this and revitalized is just such an amazing thing for the city and for the future of the city,” city council Vice President Patrick Flynn said.
Cognetti hopes the blank wall will be brought to life with murals.
The $20 million streetscape project was funded using federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding. The city had to allocate that money by the end of September, Cognetti said.
Sidewalks and safety
Corner by corner, block by block, sidewalks in downtown Scranton are being replaced.
Throughout the summer and continuing this fall, some two-lane streets are down to one lane in downtown while crews work on the sidewalks.
Cognetti said the majority of the project will wrap up this construction season, including the street corners on Biden and Mulberry Streets and Wyoming Avenue.
The work is not just on the street level but also below the surface. Many of the sidewalks were vaulted or hollow underneath, which led some of the sidewalks to collapse over the years.
"So it's made the project a little bit longer in places, but of course the safety has to come first,” the mayor said.
The city and the County of Lackawanna Transit System (COLTS) also moved a bus stop in front of the Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel on Lackawanna Avenue that was very close to moving traffic. The covered waiting area is now further down Lackawanna and set farther back from the street.
Future work
The corners around Lackawanna County Courthouse Square will be replaced in the spring. Cognetti said there are also vaults in that area that need to be filled in.
Pennsylvania American Water also moved up the replacement of a 156-year-old 24-inch cast iron water main along North Washington Avenue in downtown Scranton that broke twice in 10 days this July.
The water company said they are coordinating the work with the city’s streetscape plan and that work will also begin in the spring.
The utility improvements will be along North Washington Avenue between Lackawanna Avenue and Gibson Street. And along Mulberry Street between North Washington Avenue and Madison Avenue.
"We have a little bit more to go on the infrastructure itself, and then we will work on the traffic changes," Cognetti said.
More changes on the horizon
The other half of Scranton’s streetscape plan is changing some downtown one-way streets into two-way streets and removing traffic lights to slow down drivers.
That project will begin this month, Cognetti said.
First, the traffic lights that are set to be removed will flash red for 30 days. Then the lights will be bagged for 60 days and replaced with four-way stop signs.
Cognetti said throughout that 90 days the city will evaluate if the new traffic changes are working as predicted.
If so, then the city will take down the traffic lights.
'Invest in the city'
Cognetti pointed out that the streetscape improvements on Lackawanna Avenue are between the Radisson and the Hilton Downtown Scranton Hotel.
“This is where people come for conferences. It's where people come and stay for weddings and for you know their parents' weekend. We want to make sure that people's gateway to Scranton, and right between where they're they're staying, is is looking nice,” she said.
And that private investment Cognetti hoped would come to the downtown is already happening.
"You see that with new restaurants, new bookstores, new brewpubs. There's new coffee shops. There's all sorts of businesses that we're hoping to continue to come and invest in the city," she said.
