©2011 Galesburg Broadcasting Co.
| City Roadwork Facing Budget Potholes |
The City of Galesburg's roads overall are in pretty good shape, but the city's engineer says in order to keep them that way, and to repair streets that are in bad shape, the city will need a lot more money than it has.
Wayne Carl told the Galesburg City Council during a budget work session this week that he's earmerked almost $1.7 million for various road projects next calendar year, primarily asphalt roads but one city brick street that has been designated as unprotected will get work, too, assuming the City Council approves all of them as they're presented next year.
Problem is, Carl says that's about $6 million less than he'd like, and there's no one reason why the work isn't getting done as quickly as he'd like.
"Unfortunately, when you have this kind of budget situation, it's hard to upgrade (the roads), it's hard to come up with that kind of cash to do it," Carl said. "That's why I put together the strategies on how we could actually afford it, and even that was pretty expensive. We've just gotten really behind, and it's nobody's fault we're behind. It's just that you don't have that much revenue coming in to afford to keep upgrading."
Carl says he's like to see the city try and do as much preventative maintenance on roads as much as possible, but that's not always the case. He says other factors are expected declines in motor fuel tax revenues, and the increasing price of salt for clearing roads in the winter.
Overall, Carl says, based on an Army Corps of Engineers rating system, the city's asphalt roads are in fair to satisfactory condition, while concrete roads are in satisfactory to good condition, while the brick streets are in fair to poor condition. |
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| 09 25 09 by Newsroom |
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