The city is in the final steps of ironing out a list of road projects to address with a $5 million bond issue, according to city engineer Kevin Stafford.
Stafford said he’s still working with each of Columbus’ six councilmen to complete the list of road and drainage repair projects. He said he sent a revised list to councilmen for review on Friday.
Stafford said he hopes to have a final list for publication at the council’s first meeting in August. The plan will include milling, paving and striping, as well as curb, gutter, sidewalk and bridge work.
The project will mostly address paving needs across the city, Stafford said. One project, on Deer Run, is classified as a drainage project because it will likely see an old bridge replaced with two box culverts.
Stafford said the bridge isn’t an imminent failure risk, but is showing signs of aging.
“The bridge needs repair,” he said. “It’s a wooden bridge with no guardrails along the side of it. That’s a safety issue and also there are dilapidation issues.”
If the city replaces the bridge, Stafford said, it will likely purchase nearby property to build the replacement while the existing bridge remains open so as to not block traffic along the road.
Ward 6 Councilman Bill Gavin, whose ward contains Deer Run, said the city attempted to fix the bridge during its last major paving project, but that fell through when a property owner wouldn’t allow the city to use the land needed to reroute traffic during construction.
“That did not work out, so what we had to do was go in and add to the cost of the project a temporary road or bridge while we were replacing the bridge,” Gavin said. “That doubled the cost. By the time we doubled the cost, I didn’t have the money at that point to go in and replace the bridge.”
Gavin said the city instead made temporary repairs to the bridge, but it still needs to be replaced.
Ward 5 Councilman Stephen Jones said he’d need more than $1.7 million to address Ward 5’s full paving needs, more than double the about $750,000 councilmen will split among their wards for paving projects.
“Technically, I think Ward 5 has worse roads than anybody else, but we split the money evenly,” Jones said. “I ask that people please be patient and I will try my best to get all the roads paved eventually. But this is what I have, and we’ll have to do this best we can.”
Jones said he plans to allocate his funding to some of the most-traveled roads in Ward 5, and those that haven’t been paved in a while. He said Second Avenue, from its starting point in Ward 5 to the soccer complex, “desperately” needs to be paved.
Jones added that Sixth Avenue South, from First Street to Fourth Street, will also likely get paved in the project.
Ward 1 Councilman Gene Taylor said about 21 roads in his ward need attention.
He said a bridge near the youth detention center at the corner of College and 17th streets has a sinkhole that needs to be fixed.
“The sinkhole is on one side,” Taylor said. “It’s still passable on the opposite side, but eventually it’s going to continue to deteriorate. I think we have an opportunity to do something about it.”
Gavin noted that two streets in his ward–White Oaks and Hunters Hollow–need to be paved, but can’t because the city does not own them.
“Those streets need paving really bad but those streets have never been deeded over to the city,” Gavin said. “It’s illegal for us to pave a piece of property that the city doesn’t own.
“I know that’s going to be a sore subject for the people who live there,” Gavin added. “I sympathize with them greatly.”
Project funding
The improvement plan is similar to a project the city initiated in 2014.
In June 2014, the council approved $5 million in bonds to provide $4.5 million for paving, drainage and sidewalk improvements. At the time, a survey identified $6.3 million in needed improvements and council members were asked to help the city determine which roads in each ward should be considered a priority.
To fund the project, the city raised property taxes by 1.1 mills, an estimated additional annual cost of $11 for a property with an assessed value of $100,000.
Funding the bonds for this year’s plan, Mayor Robert Smith said, won’t require a tax increase.
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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