Torrington City Council
7/20/26
Present: Mayor Molly Spino, City Councilors Chris Beyus, Armand Maniccia, Anne Ruwet, Rachel Hannon Harrel, and David Oliver.
Absent: Councilor Paul Cavagnero.
The Torrington City Council wants to know when some of the city’s roads can be repaved. The discussion was prompted by comments from resident Ray Bottas during the council’s July 20 meeting. Bottas said roads like East Albert Street, Oak Avenue, and several in the Hospital Hill area are rough.
“I just had my front-end done because I go across there on East Albert Street a lot of times,” Bottas said. “You got to go at least two or three miles an hour. It's so bad before you get to the bridge. Both directions. It's got to be addressed.”
Bottas' concerns prompted Councilor Chris Beyus, who is also a member of the Drakeville Volunteer Fire Department, to ask Public Works Director Jamie Sykora during the meeting when the city will start fixing up some of its bumpiest roads. Beyus said city officials hear about subpar roads frequently and noted that he wanted to know if the city has conducted road assessments.
“I drive our very old fire trucks down East Albert Street, and my teeth rattle most of the time,” Beyus said. “Then I see we're paving on Torcon [Drive] and all these other roads, and I understand they're on a schedule, but how are we prioritizing these things? Because there's some pretty terrible high-traffic roads.”
Sykora said the city has been using technology from tech company Vialytics and artificial intelligence (AI) to conduct road assessments. The city has so far assessed 40 miles of local roads, Sykora said. Vialytics is a New-Jersey software company that enables municipalities to record and manage the condition of road infrastructure.
“As we drive around every so many feet, when it's activated, it takes a snapshot of the road. It uses AI and then does an assessment, so we can get faster assessments,” Sykora said. “This is all going to be logged and be better tracked and try to stay on top of it. So, we're actively working on that to come up with an assessment.”
Some repaving work is already in motion, Sykora said. Mayor Molly Spino noted that repair work has not gotten underway for other roads given that utility companies are performing infrastructure work around the city.
“Keep in mind that there's still utility work on some of these roads, and I know we hear East Albert and Albert a lot,” Spino said. “They're not done with it yet, so we're not going to pave it until utility work is done.”
A complicating factor that has extended and prioritized utility repair work in Torrington is the state of the city’s gas infrastructure. Spino said some of the city’s gas pipe inventory is more than 100 years old. The gas lines under Franklin Plaza, for instance, are 100 years old.
“We want to stay on top of it before anything happens,” Spino noted.
The city also does not have control over certain prominent roads in Torrington.
“On a state road, we have no say,” Sykora said. “Like East Main and Main Street, we can't say ‘no’ to that. Utilities get work approved by the state. It's not our roads. We can't plow them. We can't control them. We can't do anything.”
A road assessment report should be ready in a few months, Sykora said.
The council also heard the bridge on East Albert Street could soon see dramatic overhauls. In late June, the city applied for a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Authority’s (FHWA) Bridge Investment Program. The improvements and repairs to the bridge would cost around $5.1 million, with $4.1 million of that potentially coming from the Bridge Investment Program grant. The city will have to provide a 20% match or about $1 million.
