SCRANTON — A spate of streetscape projects underway in the past two months have turned much of the downtown into a construction zone.

Excavators, jackhammers, construction vehicles, orange cones and hard-hat workers abound. Closures of some sidewalks and streets have inconvenienced normal vehicle and pedestrian traffic flow. Some people walking or driving downtown wonder what’s going on with all of the work and when will it end. Others who know that it’s all a part of the city’s sweeping streetscape upgrades view the situation as some short-term pain for long-term gain.

Totaling $15 million, the wave of road construction represents one of the largest series of projects occurring at once downtown in decades. The work stems from the city’s 2023 connectivity plan/walkability study that proposed numerous ways to improve pedestrian safety and traffic flow. Streetscape upgrades are occurring under five different contracted projects involving parts of Biden and Linden streets and North Washington, Wyoming, Adams, Jefferson and Lackawanna avenues, city Business Administrator Eileen Cipriani said. The work is funded with a mix of mostly federal American Rescue Plan Act dollars and state grants.

Improvements so far generally have involved utilities and old vaults under sidewalks, mainly on streets surrounding Lackawanna County Courthouse Square, as well as other streetscape work beyond the square. Workers have dug up some sidewalks to eliminate old vaults by filling them in, and have constructed new sidewalks and curbs in their place. This also required relocation of various underground utilities. Other work also has or will involve installation of disabled accessible ramps, period lighting, landscape improvements, new communication duct banks and traffic signals.

The administration of Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti and Scranton City Council set the stage for the streetscape overhaul last fall by passing pieces of legislation underlying and authorizing the overhaul. Bidding and contracting procedures followed. Some initial work began several months ago and then got underway in full within the past two months. Most of the work should get completed by fall. The current construction resulted from extensive prior planning and procedural steps, the mayor said.

“We’ve been working for years on this. To see the progress is really exciting,” Cognetti said.

The walkability plan also calls for other major changes downtown, including replacing some traffic lights with four-way stop signs and converting some one-way streets to two-way. Those steps will come later. The city eventually will do test phases of installing four-way stop signs and bagging traffic lights to see how the switch actually works out, before any traffic lights would be removed for good. That is to ensure the four-way stops actually do what’s intended – improve pedestrian and vehicle safety and traffic flow, Cognetti said.

The public takes notice

Residents and downtown businesses obviously have taken notice of the ever present construction activities.

Jerry Ferrario, owner of the Bank Towers building at Wyoming Avenue and Biden Street and the surface parking lot in the 200 block of Wyoming Avenue, thinks all of the work will bring big benefits to downtown when it’s all completed.

“This is smart. I couldn’t be happier,” Ferrario said Thursday in an interview along Biden Street, where his building just had old underground vaults filled in and a new sidewalk installed. “We need progress and with progress comes a little bit of problems.”

Jenn Saunders, who lives downtown and owns Northern Light Espresso Bar and Cafe at 536 Biden St., said her coffee shop has had a decline in customers from the construction that at times has reduced the two-lane, one-way Biden Street and its parking on both sides down to one travel lane and one side of parking spots. She said the city could have better communicated with local businesses about the construction beforehand. The disruption has caused her for the first time to plan to offer some of her menu via deliveries. She thinks the result of the streetscape projects will be good and eagerly awaits their completion.

“I am so looking forward to it (the project completion),” Saunders said Thursday at her coffee shop.

Speaking during public comment at city council’s weekly meeting Tuesday, downtown resident Joan Hodowanitz asked about the streetscape work seemingly taking place all over the downtown, according to an Electric City Television simulcast and video of the meeting posted on YouTube. Active in city government and the local library system, Hodowanitz noted she no longer drives and regularly walks all over the downtown.

“Every morning I get up to the gentle sound of the church bells and the jackhammers,” Hodowanitz said. “The last month or so, there has been continuous drilling in the streets and in the sidewalks. I’ve never seen anything like it before. I’m assuming it’s part of the streetscape walkability, or whatever the current buzzword is, which is fine, but you can’t walk down any sidewalk without seeing the middle of the sidewalk dug up or the middle of the street dug up.”

She also wants to know what the work underway entails and about post-construction restoration.

“What is the plan?” Hodowanitz said. “I’ve never seen a year when they’ve dug up the sidewalks like this.”

Council President Tom Schuster said council would ask the administration for a timeline of the downtown projects.

Other city residents also spoke during the council meeting about the streetscape and utility work.

“I also live downtown and there is quite the amount of construction, but I view that as a good thing because you have to go through this first before we get to the streetscape projects,” Tom Skrutski said. “I’m anxious and excited to see what it will look like when it’s done. It’s a little rough right now, as everyone can attest, but I think it’s going to be well worth it.”

Green Ridge Neighborhood Association President Laura Agostini referenced utility work underway elsewhere throughout the city, particularly in parts of her neighborhood. Recent closures of some blocks and streets in neighborhoods and downtown have disrupted normal traffic flow and patterns.

“I drive downtown and I work downtown and I never know how long it’s going to take me to get there,” Agostini said. “I hope it’s going to be finished before we have so many people coming in for the FIFA (World Cup) soccer tournament (fan zone) and next weekend for the Big Boy (steam locomotive) that’s coming.”

Big crowds coming

Downtown streetscape projects won’t be completed before those events occur, but work will pause or move around during big events to reduce impacts on traffic, Cipriani said.

The Union Pacific’s Big Boy 4014, the world’s largest operating steam locomotive built in 1941 and that is on its first East Coast tour, will come to Steamtown National Historic Site just off the downtown on June 15 for a “Big Boy Reunion at Steamtown” and remain there until June 30. The visit by Big Boy 4014 to its brother Big Boy 4012, which is permanently stationed at Steamtown expects to bring big crowds of potentially tens of thousands of tourists to the city during the extended stop in Scranton. The stop by 4014 is part of its coast-to-coast tour to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary. For information on the Big Boy Reunion, see Steamtown’s website at nps.gov/stea. The city is working on plans to handle and accommodate parking for the Big Boy crowds, Cipriani said.

After Big Boy departs, the FIFA World Cup Soccer Tournament Fan Zone will be held at Lackawanna County Courthouse Square downtown on July 4-5 and July 18-19. These local watch parties also are expected to draw large crowds of potentially up to 5,000 people per day descending on the downtown square, officials have said. During a community meeting May 27 at the Hilton Scranton & Conference Center, Scranton Police Chief Thomas Carroll presented plans for safety precautions, road closures and parking during the Fan Zone event days.

During a media event held May 28 at the courthouse square by local officials and Fan Zone organizer to announce the FIFA Fan Zone schedule, the din of a nearby streetscape construction briefly drowned out Curt Camoni, the executive director at Lackawanna County Convention and Visitors Bureau. Camoni paused at a podium for about 30 seconds until the noise subsided and he could resume speaking to a small crowd gathered between the county and federal courthouses.

The noisy interruption was a “perfect testament to the progress that’s happening in downtown Scranton and Lackawanna County,” Camoni said about the construction.