Opportunity time // Loxley Road on North Side is a prime example of the deteriorating fabric of hundreds of miles of city streets.
Despite a wave of recent pothole repairs, up to half of the city’s aging roadways are rated to be in fair to poor condition.
In 2012, City Auditor Umesh Dalal reported that the city would need to spend $277 million to bring all of the streets up to good condition. Since then, the city has poured at least $25 million into street maintenance in a bid to achieve Mayor Dwight C. Jones’s goal of repaving 25 percent of neighborhood streets within five years.
Hopes that the city would keep investing between $6 million and $10 million a year into such projects are fading as the city’s borrowing capacity shrinks.
During the next five years, the city plans to invest about $13.4 million into street maintenance, an average of
$2.68 million a year. In his report, Mr. Dalal forecast that it would take a minimum of “several decades” for the city to address its street needs.
