Examining Lancaster’s street levy process, progress – Lancaster Eagle Gazette

Employees with Kokosing pour a layer of asphalt onto South Ewing Street Monday, June 12, 2017, in Lancaster.(Photo: Matthew Berry/Eagle-Gazette)Buy Photo

LANCASTER - When you ask a candidate running for council or a resident what problems needto be addressed inthe city, street repairs are usually the second item listed behind the drug epidemic.

While it's still touted as an issue, the problem was addressed when voters narrowly passed a 3-mill, 10-year levy in May 2013. The levy, which generates about $2.1 million each year in property taxes to fix city streets and alleys that have fallen into disrepair, some languishing for decades with no previous funding source to repair them.

The levy passed by only 88 votes, resulting in more than 12 miles of local roads and about 30 miles of alleys being paved since 2014, which is the year the first paving projects kicked off. Despite the road work, city offices still field calls from upset residents that go something like "Why wasn't my street done," or "What are my tax dollars paying for anyway?"

The Eagle-Gazette interviewed city officials, including City Engineer Mitch Noland and Assistant Engineer Curtis Shonk about how streets are chosen, what's been accomplished, where the paving program is headed and the hangups that come with planning improvements for the city's 200 miles of road.

Selecting roads for repaving is a complicated process.

The goal is to pave highly trafficked local streets in the worst condition first. When those areasare highlighted, the engineer's office determines if the roads are eligible for federal or state funding. If they are, the city will hold off until grant dollars are obtained.

"A lot of people truly don't understand why we're waiting on Pierce or East Fair," said Interim Service-Safety Director Paul Martin. "We divert almost all of our funding to do streets that we can't get ODOT funding from." (Pierce Avenue will be resurfaced next year.)

A truck drives past patches to the road surface Friday on Edgewood Avenue in Lancaster. Edgewood which underwent extensive utility work last year is one of the streets slated to be paved this year using funds from the city's paving program.(Photo: Matthew Berry/Eagle-Gazette)

Once viable streets are identified, the engineer's office coordinates with other city departments, such as gas and water, to determine what their projects are that could tear up a freshly paved street if they proceeded with the project. Often coordinating with other departments is the most challenging piece of the puzzle.

"(Other city departments) have got their own maps and you put them on top of each other, and the roads don't line up," Shonk said.

A survey was completed to determine pavement condition ratings for all streets in 2014. The city is in the process of updating the map now that some work has been completed and other roads havedeteriorated further. The results will help determine what projects will be identified in the future.

Funding is also a major hurdle when it comes to selecting projects. A street that may be the same size as another with the same outward wear and tear may be harder to fix.

"Streets aren't created equal," Noland said, explaining the cost to repair depends on the material that is below the asphalt and the process used when it was first built.

Noland used Kanawha Drive as an example. The road is a few inches of pavement on top of dirt. There is no base, which significantly adds to the cost and the type of equipment required to repair it.

Lancaster Engineer Mitch Noland holds part of a core sample taken from Harrison Avenue between Sixth Avenue and Main Street. The Lancaster Department of Transportation takes core samples of streets for the engineer's office to help determine how streets are repaved.(Photo: Matthew Berry/Eagle-Gazette)

Even sections of streets aren't created equal. One part may have a good base, requiring the simple mill and fill process and the next section may have a brick base or none at all. Edgewood Avenue is an example of this. The city takes core samples of the street every 200 to 300 feet to discover any issues that may lie beneath, but surprises are expected. Surprises are almost always expensive, and all of it impacts the street levy budget.

In addition to streets, the Lancaster Department of Transportation is paving 11 alleys in the citythis summer from Mulberry Street to the area just north of Fair Avenue, and Columbus Street to Sheridan Drive. Similar to street repairs, alleys sat for years with no maintenance.

The last time there was a program to repave alleys was the sometime in the 1990s, but it was discontinued. Potholes were fixed when people complained, but there was no equipment or funding to do anything more until the levy was passed.

For comparison, it costs between $16 and $20 a square yard to mill and fill a street and about $4.95 per square yard to fix analley.

This is the third year the alleys have been paved, and LDOT Superintendent Greg Hintz said it's possible they will complete all city alleys by the end of next year, which is a year earlier than their goal.

A driver heads down an alley Friday between Park Street and Edgewood Avenue in Lancaster. The city is working on a paving program that will include repairs in some alleys.(Photo: Jess Grimm/Eagle-Gazette )

By the end of 2016, the city collected $6.53 million in tax dollars through the levy. Similar to the complicated nature of how streets are selected, the breakdown of budget funds cannot be easily summed up to say it all pays for asphalt.

Here's the breakdown, showing how each dollarwas spent from 2014 to 2016:

There is a remaining $200,000 set aside for emergencies and about $95,000 that was not spent at the end of 2016.

As promised during the levy campaign, the funds do not pay for personnel. At first, city officials thought additional personnel would need to be hired to administer the program, but no additional employees were hired, and the levy does not fund any salaries.

The simple answer is no.

"We won't be getting to all of the streets in 10 years," Martin said.

He foresees the city requesting a renewal levy not only to continue resurfacing streets but to maintain ones that were done when the paving program first started.

Still, Martin said the program is successful and a far cry from the previous paving program or lack thereof because the work is top quality and planned in a way that's "getting the most bang for our buck."

"It's only year four (of the levy)," he said. "I have a lot more streets in mind, and we need to keep plugging away. We're not done, and we're on a path to keep it up."

sremoquill@lancastereaglegazette.com

740-681-4342

Twitter: @SpencerRemo

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Examining Lancaster's street levy process, progress - Lancaster Eagle Gazette