Jacksonville says it can't afford most of its needed road repairs

[thelakelander]

Many 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

[vicupstate]

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.

[Charles Hunter]

[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]

[spuwho]

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.

[Charles Hunter]

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

[jaxjaguar]

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...

[Josh]

Aside from the city spending millions to destroy Laura St with those idiotic "cobblestones," I've never noticed any road surface issues downtown.

[coredumped]

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.

[JFman00]

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.

[thelakelander]

Are these guys still fixing streets for the right to advertise on them?

[southsider1015]

Are these guys still fixing streets for the right to advertise on them?

What a joke.  Not the Bold City of the South if we can't even manage our city.  Is it election time yet?

[I-10east]

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

[Know Growth]

[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  ) would certainly  "Expand" the 'tax base'. Plenty.No worries.

[peestandingup]

How's that "biggest city by land mass" title working out?

[Adam12]

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.