THE BLADE: TOLEDO, OHIO ■ SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2015 SECTION A, PAGE 3FROM PAGE 1 toledoBlade.com

StreetsContinued from Page A1

Eric VanBuskirk, who lives at Springbrook and Lauderdaledrives, explains how part of Springbrook is so bad he can’tpush his child in a stroller without waking him up.

THE BLADE/ANDY MORRISON

Five blocks of Springbrook Drive near Talmadge Road wererepaved this year, but residents say that the street west ofCoronada Drive, which wasn’t touched by crews, is horrible.

Linda Zawierucha of Springbrook Drive says the five blocksthat were repaved didn’t need to be touched. She points tothe area west of Coronada Drive, saying that is worse.

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MICH.OHIO

8090

Maumee

River

Maumee Bay

Woodville Rd.

Broadw

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Detro

it Ave

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Monroe St.

Monroe St.

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olds R

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McC

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Key S

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Eastgate Rd.

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Collin

gwoo

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Suder Ave.

Benore Rd.

Heatherdowns Blvd.

Dorr St.

Nebraska Ave.Nebraska Ave.

Hill Ave.

South St.

Glendale Ave.

Alexis Rd.

Sylvania Ave.

Corey Rd.

Dixie

Hwy

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Central Ave.Central Ave.

Seco

r Rd.

Byrn

e Rd.

York St.

Cedar Point Rd.

Curtice Rd.

Wales Rd.

Oakdale Ave. Brown Rd.

Wales Rd.

Walbridge Rd.

Williston Rd.

Ayers Rd.

Martin Rd.

Hanley Rd.

Latcha Rd.

Genoa Rd.Five Point Rd.

Roachton Rd.

Eckel Junction Rd.

Fort

Mei

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Thom

pson

Rd.

Dunb

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Rd. Reitz Rd.

Trac

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East

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Drou

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OREGON

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Sylvania Twp.

Perrysburg Twp.

Lake Twp.

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TOLEDOOTTAWAHILLS

Airport Highway

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Lewi

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Bancroft St.

Summit S

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Manhattan Blvd.

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Navarre Ave.

Corduroy Rd.

Seaman St.

Starr Ave.

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ndor

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Cherry St.Lagrange St.

Washington Twp.

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LANEPROJECT PROJECT LIMITS MILES1. Bancroft Monroe Ashland 2.002. Airport/Western South Broadway 8.003. S. Detroit Copland Sherwood 2.104. Arlington** Byrne Detroit 6.365. AWT Intersections Safety Project** South Western 5.256. Ottawa Street/Owens Corning Pkwy** Morris Monroe 1.407. Elliott Bancroft Woodruff 0.488. Oak Florence Fassett 2.009. Kelsey Midvale Heffner 0.4210. Morrison Front 6th 0.8511. Federal Leonard Nevada 0.3212. Berry Leonard Nevada 0.3413. Leonard Nevada Berry 0.6014. Prentice Woodville Nevada 0.1015. Cutter Steel Dearborn 0.1216. Auburn Bancroft Monroe 0.7317. Forest Grand Bancroft 0.2718. Algonquin Central Hughes 0.3419. Giant Bigelow Jackman 0.4820. Clay Brigham Maher 0.0921. Batavia Ashland Fulton 0.3422. Mulberry Oakland Hudson 0.1023. Lindsey Pierce Lawrence 0.1924. Hensville** Various Various 0.2125. Flamingo Ariel Cypress 0.1526. Carskaddon Middlesex Monroe 0.6327. Sunforest South End Sylvania 0.3928. Springbrook Coronada Talmadge 0.5529. Sheila Laskey Reen 0.1530. Royalton Parakeet Eastway 0.4531. 108th Ottawa River 290th 0.7232. Crestwood Jackman Commonwealth 0.4533. W. Poinsetta 500 west of Burnham Burnham 0.2034. 302nd 131st 124th 0.3035. Heatherdowns/Perrysburg-Holland Intersection Intersection 0.8036. Talmadge (concrete patching) Central I-475 2.66Total 40.54**Will not be completed in 2015 NOTE: Does not include 10.9 lane-miles of “mill and �ll” patching performed by city crews

2015 PAVING PROJECTS

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2728

26

1819

32 33

34

31

22

246

1015

91112

13

8

52

4

35

36

3

14

20

21

1716

17

23

30

25

* Indicates district

THE BLADE

LANE TOTALPROJECT PROJECT LIMITS MILES CITY FUNDS ESTIMATED COSTDouglas/Dorr Intersection Intersection Intersection 1.60 $276,800 $1,384,000 Douglas Sylvania Laskey 5.36 $1,199,695 $4,899,361 Indiana Gateway I-75 Washington 0.51 $660,000 $1,060,000 Eastgate Glendale Airport 2.14 $1,542,490 $1,738,000 Cass Eastgate City Limits 3.00 $1,285,860 $1,435,800 Douglas Kenwood Central 2.38 $1,454,355 $1,701,000 Reynolds Glendale City Limits 4.55 $477,770 $1,364,000 S. Detroit/Fearing Arlington I-75 11.74 $934,390 $3,089,000 Central Manchester City Limits 9.27 $404,908 $2,051,000 Sylvania Talmadge Secor 5.50 $1,900,000 $1,900,000 Central Secor Upton 8.00 $2,200,000 $2,200,000 Totals 54.05 $12,336,268 $22,822,161

2016 PROJECTED PAVING PROJECTS

NOTE: Does not include residential streets to be chosen later or projects carried over from 2015.SOURCE: Toledo Division of Engineering Services THE BLADE

two of the four blocks weredone, a city streets managertold The Blade that he decidedthe blocks between Erie andSuperior streets could wait be-cause in his opinion, the worstpavement there was in a lanewhere city employees park forfree, not the travel lane motor-ists use — although it also haslarge cracks and gaps.

David Welch, commissionerof streets, bridges, and harbor,said his office would take an-other look at that part of Jack-son next year. But on Monday,officials told Toledo City Coun-cil that next year’s budget hadno money to continue the“mill and fill” program.

Section approachMany of the streets resur-

faced during the constructionseason were just sections, notentire streets.

Among those was Spring-brook Drive, a residentialstreet off Talmadge Road nearI-475 where contractors rebuiltthe five blocks closest to Tal-madge, leaving several resi-dents scratching their heads.

“That’s the area that’s reallybad,” Springbrook residentLinda Zawierucha, whostopped at a mailbox along therepaved section, said with afinger pointed west toward thestretch beyond CoronadaDrive that wasn’t touched.

The blocks that were re-paved, she said, “didn’t evenneed it. Why they did this, Idon’t know.”

“It’s horrible,” Eric VanBu-skirk, who lives at Springbrookand Lauderdale Drive, agreedregarding Springbrook west ofCoronada. “I can’t even pushmy kid down the street [in astroller] without waking himup and his head bobbing allover the place.”

Doug Stephens, the city’scommissioner of engineeringservices, said the reason theeast end of Springbrook wasdone and not the west was de-termined by what lies beneaththe surface.

The section from Coronadaeast, he said, was full-depth as-phalt, suitable for a “reclama-tion” project in which the oldpavement is ground up andused as aggregate for the new.

But to the west, Mr. Ste-phens said, old concrete pave-ment lies below the asphaltsurface.

To fix that part of Spring-brook, he said, will require re-building it — and that’s some-thing the city can’t afford.

“The Springbrook reclama-tion was part of a larger recla-mation project that includedfive other residential streets,”Mr. Stephens said. “That col-lection of streets was awardedoutside funding to help pay forit. The concrete section wasnot part of that process andwould have had to have beenreconstructed with 100 percentcity funding, which we did nothave a budget for.”

Assessing optionsMayor Hicks-Hudson said

she is considering a multitudeof options to better fund streetrepaving and reconstruction,but she would not specify whather administration is planning.

“I am looking at what weneed to do to fix these streets,”she said. “I am exploring ev-erything. We can no longer op-erate taking money out of thecapital-improvements bud-get.”

The mayor’s proposed 2016general fund budget to pay po-lice and fire and other city of-fices requires $10.4 million betransferred from the capital-improvements budget, thefund used to pay for majorstreet paving.

Former Mayor Mike Bell andthe late Mayor D. MichaelCollins also used the capital-

improvements money to keepthe general fund in balance.Both said that was not sustain-able, but neither had an alter-native.

Mr. Stephens said there areoptions but he is not surewhich the mayor would push.

Among them would be toask voters to increase the tem-porary 0.75 percent income taxto 1 percent.

That would make the city’stotal payroll tax 2.5 percent —same as Columbus.

A 0.25 percent hike in thecity income tax would raise anadditional $16 million a year.

“All of our money we get forroads comes through thethree-quarters percent incometax,” Mr. Stephens said. “It hasa certain portion set aside forCIP [capital-improvementsprogram]. We use a combina-tion of cash and bonding tocome up with the total CIPprogram and then you get abreak out of the total CIPwhich goes to roadways.”

The city could ask voters toapprove a property tax levy orcould assess the cost of streetrepairs to property owners, butthat too requires residents’permission, Mr. Stephens said.

Mileage totalsThe Springbrook repaving

counts for 0.55 lane-mile ofstreet repairs toward the 35.08lane-miles of reconstructionand repaving city officials saywere finished this year.

That’s about 5½ miles shortof the mileage plan the city an-nounced in the spring, a differ-ence driven by its decision notto proceed this year with a 6.36lane-mile “reclamation” proj-ect on Arlington Avenue be-tween Detroit Avenue andByrne Road, when the only bidcame in $400,000 too high.

Two city projects started in2014 were officially finishedthis year: the dual round-abouts at the former “Thou-sand Islands” intersections ofDetroit Avenue, Cherry Street,Berdan Avenue, and Manhat-tan and Collingwood boule-vards, and Dorr Street recon-struction between WestwoodAvenue and Byrne Road.

They accounted for a com-bined 7.76 lane-miles of con-struction. On the other hand,the joint city-ODOT project torebuild the Anthony WayneTrail between South andWestern avenues, a 5.25 lane-mile entry on the city’s 2015program, won’t be finished un-til next year.

Also not counted in the city’sproject total is about 10.9 lane-miles that city crews did them-selves under the streets divi-sion’s “mill and fill” program.That mileage is an estimatebased on the amount of ma-terial used and included exten-sive work on sections of thepothole-plagued Trail that offi-cials agree need rebuilding— once the city can afford it.

Toledo no longer uses mile-age goals for street resurfacing,Mr. Stephens said, the way itdid during the 1990s and 2000s— most prominently duringthe administrations of MayorCarty Finkbeiner, who publiclyfired one administrator anddemoted another one year af-ter a paving goal was missed.

“What mileage goals do is,you’re going to do things youshouldn’t do just to make themileage,” the engineeringcommissioner said. “We’re justtrying to use the dollars wehave as wisely as we can. Themoney dedicated to that[Arlington] project stays withthat project.”

The mileage numbers citedin city street-repair plansaren’t comparable with thosefrom the 1990s and 2000s.Early this decade, Mr. Ste-phens said, city administratorsswitched from counting basedon street-miles — with streetsfour lanes or wider counteddouble — to lane-miles.

Under the old basis, thisyear’s street-paving programwould have completed fewer

than 17.5 street-miles.Without the Arlington work,

the largest city project com-pleted during 2015 wasWestern Avenue and AirportHighway between Broadwayand South Avenue, whichcounted for 8 lane-miles.

Other projectsOther projects of more than

one lane-mile done this yearincluded the Bancroft Streetreconstruction between Mon-roe Street and AshlandAvenue, Detroit Avenue resur-facing between Copland Bou-

levard and Sherwood Avenue,and Oak Street betweenFlorence and Fassett streets.

But the city put off resurfac-ing Ottawa Street and OwensCorning Parkway, a 1.4 lane-mile project, because of a con-flict with construction trafficassociated with the OhioDepartment of Transporta-tion’s overhaul of the AnthonyWayne Bridge.

Several blocks’ worth of re-surfacing in the WarehouseDistrict to support the ToledoMud Hens’ Hensville develop-ment, meanwhile, was post-poned until spring because

Hensville was late, Mr. Ste-phens said.

The other oddity on thestreet-repair list involved asection of Prentice Avenue inEast Toledo that a city spokes-man said shouldn’t have beenon the list in the first place.

Prentice was listed for resur-facing between WoodvilleRoad and Nevada Street, butonly the section betweenWoodville and Leonard Streetwas done.

The remainder to Nevada isstill paved in brick.

Stacy Weber, a city spokes-man, said listing that section

for resurfacing was a mistake.“The entire length should

not have been included in theresurfacing project as we arenot currently resurfacing anyexposed brick streets,” Ms.Weber said. “At this point, onlya complete reconstructionwould suffice and we currentlydo not have the budget to do afull reconstruction.”

Leonard, Prentice, and sev-eral adjoining streets were allcited two years ago by ToledoCouncilman Mike Craig as ex-amples of how his council dis-trict was getting shortchangedby the city’s street repair andreconstruction program.

Destiny Kudlica, a Leonardresident, said she’s pleasedwith the work done on herstreet, where she can now tellwhen cars drive over a man-hole cover in front of herhouse.

“The thunking noise on themanholes [is irritating], but be-sides that, I like it,” she said ona recent afternoon, and side-walk and wheelchair-ramp up-grades mean wheelchair usersare “off the road more.”

“I really think they did a nicejob getting it done,” ChristyReneau, another Leonard resi-dent, said of her street— though she’d like to see thebrick section of Prentice getfixed too.

“There is a part that has apretty big bump that I alwayshave to make sure I goaround,” Ms. Reneau said.

Funding sourcesRepair of residential streets

like Prentice is mostly depen-dent on the city’s budget, whilebigger streets like Arlington aretypically eligible for partialstate and federal funding.

For the Arlington project,Toledo holds a $784,000 OhioPublic Works Commissiongrant for part of that project’s$2.4 million cost. But the lonebid came in at $2.85 million,which city officials said was toohigh.

Mr. Stephens said officialsplan to tweak the project plansand put it out to bid again thiswinter in hope of getting betterbids from contractors whowon’t yet have filled up their2016 construction schedules,which the engineering com-missioner believes was whythe 2015 bidding went sopoorly.

“Obviously we didn’t havereal hungry contractors outthere to get their best pricing,”Mr. Stephens said.

Assuming it gets done in2016, the Arlington project willbe part of a much busier repairseason for Toledo streets, withmore than 54 lane-miles ofstreets slated for renewal— not even counting residen-tial streets that haven’t beenchosen yet.

The largest of those isDetroit Avenue betweenArlington and I-75, which ac-counts for 11.74 lane-miles ofresurfacing. The list also in-cludes two separate resurfac-ing projects on CentralAvenue; Sylvania Avenue be-tween Secor and Talmadgeroads; Reynolds Road betweenGlendale Avenue and the OhioTurnpike, and Douglas Roadbetween Sylvania and LaskeyRoad.

The Douglas work will be afollow-on to a water-main re-placement project already un-der way and scheduled forcompletion in the spring.

The 2016 list also includesthe “Indiana Gateway,” whichinvolves rebuilding and beau-tifying Indiana Avenue from I-75, where the freeway’s south-bound downtown exit feedsinto it, to Washington Street.

It does not include a similar“gateway” project at the An-thony Wayne Trail entrance toErie Street, which had beententatively scheduled for nextyear but has been postponeduntil 2017.

Contact David Patch at:dpatch@theblade.com

or 419-724-6094.