SCRANTON -- A busy street in downtown Scranton that was paved less than a year ago is receiving complaints about being too bumpy.
Part of North Washington Avenue in the downtown was repaved last summer, part of a $2 million paving project throughout the city. But people who live downtown say this intersection where North Washington meets Mulberry is worse than it was before.
The 400 block of North Washington Avenue doesn't look like it was paved less than a year ago.
Jan Tobin says it doesn't feel like it either. She lives on the 400 block and needs a motorized wheelchair to get around.
'The road is so bad that the chair doesn't go over it well, it goes all over the place," said Tobin.
UGI officials say their crews cut up the fresh pavement to fix a broken gas line back in September.
Since then, seniors who live in Mulberry Tower say they avoid this part of the intersection.
'I'll go this way and then that way. I don't do over there," said Brenda Collins. "It's lumpy! It's not safe."
Brenda Collins says the extra walking is worth it for her she says some of her other neighbors have gotten their wheelchairs stuck on the crosswalk.
"One of these cars is going to hit one of these seniors because we're right in the smack of the seniors here, and this road is not fixed."
Less than 24 hours after Newswatch 16 started asking questions, UGI sent a crew to this intersection and decided that since the rough road was right in the middle of the crosswalk, that something needed to be done immediately.
"It's just a band-aid, I'll put it that way," said Collins.
UGI officials say this is just a temporary fix. They will repave the 400 block of North Washington later this year. They've waited because there's still maintenance work to do there.
The utility company says it tries to work with the city to coordinate maintenance and paving. That didn't work out this time.
"They did it less than a month later, or it seemed like that," said Tobin. "They're digging it up down the street too, so, job security?"
UGI officials say once all of their work on North Washington Avenue is finished, likely later this summer or early fall, then crews will completely repave this part of the street.