Staten Island Streets Get Weeklong Milling, Day Off for Veterans Day

Routine, unglamorous infrastructure work like Staten Island street repairs quietly underpins New York City’s economic health and political legitimacy.

Shortly after dawn on a weekday, the most disruptive force on some Staten Island streets will not be a parade or protest but the tarmac-devouring maw of a city milling machine. Next week, residents of neighborhoods across the borough are promised the recurrent sight—some would say ordeal—of Department of Transportation (DOT) crews slicing away the top layer of battered asphalt, prepping streets for fresh paving. It is the sort of event that disrupts commutes, demands detours, and, to the untrained eye, portends little beyond the inconvenience of a longer school run or noisier afternoon.

The city’s Roadway Repair and Maintenance Division has flagged a week-long sweep of milling and resurfacing in Community Board 2 and other areas, with both day and night crews slated for deployment. The operation, part of ongoing efforts to keep New York’s 6,000 miles of streets safe, will pause only once—on November 11th, out of respect for Veterans Day. In an era when infrastructure battles often revolve around heady upgrades or wild cost overruns, such routine repairs slip quietly below the news radar. Yet, for the more than 500,000 Staten Islanders, these minor disruptions make an outsize mark, affecting daily life in mundane but material ways.

Road maintenance in New York falls perpetually behind schedule. After last year’s spate of record rainfall and winter freezing, the city estimates as many as 400,000 potholes may bedevil drivers this year. DOT crews fill many, but the stopgap rarely lasts; the underlying asphalt, sometimes decades old, too often crumbles anew. Milling and paving—removal and replacement rather than patchwork—are regarded as the gold standard, albeit limited by New York’s chronically strained repair budgets.

Beyond the tar and gravel, the knock-on effects ripple through public life. Disrupted bus routes, missed deliveries, and delays for emergency vehicles are perennial irritants. Yet, smooth roads yield tangible benefits: they reduce vehicular wear and tear, improve cycling safety, and burnish the city’s battered image for tourists and business travelers alike. The city reckons that each dollar spent on preventive maintenance saves taxpayers anywhere from $3 to $10 down the line, forestalling the puny palliative of endless pothole filling.

Moreover, these projects illuminate the machine politics of infrastructure. The city’s priorities, influenced by vocal local boards and borough advocacy, determine which stretches get attention and which languish. Staten Island long chafed at perceived neglect by agencies focused on Manhattan and Brooklyn. Recent years have seen a mild uptick in investment for the borough—though figures still pale compared to its more populous counterparts. Yet, Staten Island’s per-capita allocation for street work now outpaces the citywide average, a fact quietly trumpeted by officials wooing skeptical voters.

For individual New Yorkers, the sounds and scents of roadworks are unwelcome but familiar. Homeowners fret over blocked driveways; small businesses count the lost foot traffic; transit users—already beset by subway delays—must factor in bus detours and traffic jams. Still, polling suggests the public is largely resigned to the ritual, if not resigned to the state of their streets. Complaints abate when smooth asphalt replaces the rattling potholes. To that end, the real measure of the city’s efforts is rarely a ribbon-cutting but whether school buses and delivery vans jounce less a week after the work is done.

A patchwork city

Nationally, New York’s struggles are emblematic. America’s infrastructure, once the envy of the world, has been downgraded by the American Society of Civil Engineers to a paltry C-minus. Federal initiatives, notably 2021’s $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, have begun to trickle to city streets, but not always swiftly or visibly. New York’s DOT faces its own gantlet: each year, repairs must do battle with rising labour costs, supply issues for asphalt, and the cantankerous New York climate. Nor are New Yorkers alone in their grievances. Paris, London, and even Tokyo wrestle with their own versions—punctuated by squabbles over funding, local governance, and the not-so-trivial politics of road closures.

Yet it is cities like New York, where daily economic activity depends on the relentless movement of people and goods, that are most exposed. Unreliable roads can quietly erode competitiveness, discouraging investment and undermining the city’s appeal to businesses weighing post-pandemic office plans. The link between crumbling infrastructure and voter discontent is neither new nor subtle. Mayors from Lindsay to Adams have learned the cost of being seen to preside over broken pavements and sluggish repairs.

We find it grimly ironic that something as mundane as road repair occupies such a Sisyphean place in New York’s public life—perpetually under attack by weather, budget constraints, and bureaucratic friction. But accepting decay as fate would be shortsighted. Preventive maintenance, if programmatic and properly funded, offers the city the best chance of holding potholes at bay and avoiding the costlier, disruptive “fixes” of the past.

As crews descend on Staten Island, the city has an opportunity to demonstrate competence in an age rife with skepticism. The work may inconvenience, but it also offers a visible—almost theatrical—reminder of what local government can accomplish. Investments in infrastructure, however unsexy, pay dividends in efficiency, safety, and the quiet confidence of a city that takes care of its bones.

New York, with all its appetites and ambitions, should demand no less. ■