QuoteMany of Jacksonville's most worn-out streets won't be repaved this year unless the city finds more money to boost an anemic roads budget.
Whether that will happen remains to be seen.
A special City Council committee last week scrutinized the city's debt that pays for improvement projects, including road resurfacing, and found at least $6.9 million that could possibly be used to repave more streets. The committee could find out Wednesday whether that money is actually available.
As of now, the city will have just $2 million to spend on resurfacing and maintaining roughly 3,600 miles of roads, compared to the $9.4 million included in last year's budget.
That would cover only 35 of the city's 68 highest-priority projects, and nowhere near the 116 projects it repaved last year.
To make the most out of its limited budget, the city will take on a bundle of smaller-priced projects distributed throughout a wide area of the city.
Taking that approach forces the city to ignore some of its most high-priority needs, which are also some of the most expensive sections of road to repave.
In total, eight of the 10 roads determined to be in the worst shape are not scheduled to be resurfaced this year.
James Little, a resident who lives on Seaboard Avenue on the Westside, said his street is not in particularly bad shape although it is on the city list as one of the worst. He said the road gets a lot of traffic, but he said there are others with more potholes and in worse shape.
"This isn't that bad," Little said. "I've certainly seen worse."
The tight budget also restricts the city from doing preventative maintenance that extends the life of better-conditioned roads and saves taxpayers money in the long run.
Full article: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2015-01-13/story/jacksonville-says-it-cant-afford-most-its-needed-road-repairs
The tight budget also restricts the city from doing preventative maintenance that extends the life of better-conditioned roads and saves taxpayers money in the long run.
^^ Pennywise and dollar foolish. The false economy you think you are getting when you blindly refuse to levy any tax or fee for any purpose. You end up paying even more in the long run. That or the roads just go to hell.
[sarcasm]But think of all the business - and J.O.B.S. - the poorly maintained roads provide for body shops and tire shops and front end shops.
You guys aren't looking at the Big Picture - it's all about JOBS![/s]
Why do we repave streets that dont need it?
They have been repaving Beach from University to Parental Home. You be hard pressed to know exactly why.
No cracks, no potholes, no bumps. Yet we have unpaved streets throughout.
There is supposed to be a grading system to determine which streets get priority.
Beach Blvd. is a state road, and they have their own rating system to determine when to repave a road.
A quick Google search, and here's a book with more than I want to know about pavement rating:
http://www.dot.state.fl.us/statematerialsoffice/administration/resources/library/publications/researchreports/pavement/flexiblehandbook.pdf
The roads downtown are embarrassingly bad on both the north and south banks (especially the north). It's amazing how uneven / patched together they all are. 90% of them should've been repaved 5+ years ago, but as others have stated, due to neglect and basic maintenance it's going to cost tax payers 10x as much to repair. We desperately need a tax increase or some other sort of revenue source. An extra cent per gallon on gas could go a long way...
Aside from the city spending millions to destroy Laura St with those idiotic "cobblestones," I've never noticed any road surface issues downtown.
I saw on the news the other night there's a $2 million SURPLUS in the budget because of the decrease in gas prices just from the last quarter. It could be 5x that if prices remain.
There was no talk on the news of giving any of that money back to the tax payers, but to "use it for other things" that "will benefit the tax payers."
Maybe they could use that since we'll never see that money again.
I reported a giant pothole on Adams St prior to the ramp to 95 when I lived downtown (Summer 2013). 3 months later, it hadn't been fixed.
Are these guys still fixing streets for the right to advertise on them?
(http://blog.groupable.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/kfc_potholes.jpg)
Quote from: thelakelander on January 15, 2015, 08:32:12 PM
Are these guys still fixing streets for the right to advertise on them?
(http://blog.groupable.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/kfc_potholes.jpg)
What a joke. Not the Bold City of the South if we can't even manage our city. Is it election time yet?
For a city this big, I haven't saw anything ultra-alarming concerning potholes for the most part. I'll say that in Jax, it don't get much worse than the access road in the back of Gateway where the Travelers Lodge hotel once stood. If yall think that Jax is bad, try some Rustbelt cities like Pittsburgh and Cleveland; They make Jax's roads look like a marble table.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXgkquqbl6U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhiYuT_FPzs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4ZlHipRfxY
Quote from: Charles Hunter on January 14, 2015, 08:21:40 PM
[sarcasm]But think of all the business - and J.O.B.S. - the poorly maintained roads provide for body shops and tire shops and front end shops.
You guys aren't looking at the Big Picture - it's all about JOBS![/s]
10/4!
And "Growth"......decades ago the narrative was that the level of anticipated growth promoted (today's amount of cement would have thrilled some Consolidators and subsequent Pro Growthers 8) ) would certainly "Expand" the 'tax base'. Plenty.No worries.
How's that "biggest city by land mass" title working out?
For what it's worth, Hillsborough county has ~$8 billion in unfunded transportation needs, but only $44 million to spend. The approach to solving this problem so far has been to try to get a referendum passed, but given the results in Pinellas and Polk, I am increasingly pessimistic about that happening. There are just too many people in Florida who are perfectly happy building eight lane highways to nowhere.
http://tbo.com/news/politics/long-road-ahead-to-fund-hillsborough-transporation-needs-20141212/
Then of course there are bridges around the country that have been neglected for decades and a few have been collapsing recently. Sewer pipes periodically burst, water lines rupture and cause sections of road to collapse, etc. This is infrastructure on the cheap and it's a national problem.
Quote from: I-10east on January 15, 2015, 11:04:46 PM
For a city this big, I haven't saw anything ultra-alarming concerning potholes for the most part. I'll say that in Jax, it don't get much worse than the access road in the back of Gateway where the Travelers Lodge hotel once stood. If yall think that Jax is bad, try some Rustbelt cities like Pittsburgh and Cleveland; They make Jax's roads look like a marble table.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXgkquqbl6U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhiYuT_FPzs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4ZlHipRfxY
Jacksonville, like all Florida cities, doesn't need to maintain roads which deal with freezing temperatures, snow, salt, and the other issues of the north. There's frankly no excuse on why our local roads are in such shape, especially when its known that it's actually cheaper to do regular maintenance (resurfacing) than the big reconstruction projects.
Zero excuse.
One concern that I have is that the City of Jacksonville's Standard Construction Specifications have not been updated in ALMOST 20 years:
http://www.coj.net/departments/planning-and-development/development-services-division/city-standard-specifications.aspx (http://www.coj.net/departments/planning-and-development/development-services-division/city-standard-specifications.aspx)
When asked the question about why the City doesn't keep up to date on these types of construction details, the response is "We can't possibly stay on top of these things." I recommended that the City could simply refer to FDOT standards, details, etc., and again the response was "FDOT updates everything too much, and we can't keep up."
Lake, you've mentioned in the past about FDOT updating their design standards. Please look no further than COJ, and their decades old design standards.
^I agree. It was one thing I was helping Bill Killingsworth with when he was the planning director. Unfortunately, the election cycle came before that effort was fully complete and COJ priorities changed.
Quote from: southsider1015 on January 16, 2015, 09:50:17 PM
Jacksonville, like all Florida cities, doesn't need to maintain roads which deal with freezing temperatures, snow, salt, and the other issues of the north. There's frankly no excuse on why our local roads are in such shape, especially when its known that it's actually cheaper to do regular maintenance (resurfacing) than the big reconstruction projects.
Zero excuse.
Heartily agree. "You should see Somalia! It's so much worse there" should not be justification for underfunding a basic government function.
Meh...Three words. POST SOME VIDEOS; People will say that's it??? Youtube has no 'Jacksonville potholes' videos, so it can't be too concerning. Like I said before to defend myself, I don't see anything consistently alarming in this city of 800+ square miles with potholes, in my experiences driving all over this city....
potholes? POTHOLES??? The mother of all potholes is on South Liberty Street right smack in the downtown Core. April 11th will be the third anniversary of the hole and the closing of that street. We had a chat on another discussion about publicly celebrating the event with a "party", and use it to highlight the problem around the city. I volunteer to help underwrite the cost of signs, social media, tee shirts (The Hole In The Road Gang). The objective is to shine the light on City Council and the mayor's office for failing to do their duty. Legislation to fix the hole has been deferred since August, and the General Counsel has been dithering with a lawsuit forever. looking for an organizer to pull it off and get media attention. ideas?
Yeah, 2014-526, appropriating $750,000 to fix the Liberty Hole is listed on the Council's Matters Pending, but was not on the agenda for this week's (Jan. 13) agenda. At the Urban Core CPAC last week, someone (don't remember who) said it was coming before Council "soon".
deferred in august, September, October, and ignored in November, December, January...
Quote from: thelakelander on January 14, 2015, 04:46:11 PM
QuoteMany of Jacksonville's most worn-out streets won't be repaved this year unless the city finds more money to boost an anemic roads budget.
Whether that will happen remains to be seen.
A special City Council committee last week scrutinized the city's debt that pays for improvement projects, including road resurfacing, and found at least $6.9 million that could possibly be used to repave more streets. The committee could find out Wednesday whether that money is actually available.
As of now, the city will have just $2 million to spend on resurfacing and maintaining roughly 3,600 miles of roads, compared to the $9.4 million included in last year's budget.
That would cover only 35 of the city's 68 highest-priority projects, and nowhere near the 116 projects it repaved last year.
To make the most out of its limited budget, the city will take on a bundle of smaller-priced projects distributed throughout a wide area of the city.
Taking that approach forces the city to ignore some of its most high-priority needs, which are also some of the most expensive sections of road to repave.
In total, eight of the 10 roads determined to be in the worst shape are not scheduled to be resurfaced this year.
James Little, a resident who lives on Seaboard Avenue on the Westside, said his street is not in particularly bad shape although it is on the city list as one of the worst. He said the road gets a lot of traffic, but he said there are others with more potholes and in worse shape.
"This isn't that bad," Little said. "I've certainly seen worse."
The tight budget also restricts the city from doing preventative maintenance that extends the life of better-conditioned roads and saves taxpayers money in the long run.
Full article: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2015-01-13/story/jacksonville-says-it-cant-afford-most-its-needed-road-repairs
Yeah, but I save $20 per year on my taxes.