The map above shows roads the city hopes to pave this year which was presented at Tuesday’s Marysville Public Service Committee meeting. Officials said the list of roads could change slightly depending on the quality of bids received. The map also doesn’t take into account work on Route 38 which the Ohio Department of Transportation will carry out this year.
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City of Marysville officials came to Tuesday’s public service committee meeting to present the streets they hope to pave as part of this year’s paving program.
The list includes portions of Mulberry Street, Poplar Street, Taylor Avenue, Terrace Drive, Wind Mil Drive, Carmel Drive, Lora Lee Drive, Square Drive, Valley Drive, Milcrest Drive, Damascus Drive, Fairview Avenue, Fernwood Court, Grace Drive, Northwoods Drive, Rainbow Drive, Wedgewood Drive, and Alley One off North Main Street and Collins Avenue. Also included are West Eighth Street, Milford Avenue, West Sixth Street, and South Court Street, which were included in the program after paving related to waterline work last year went unfinished.
Every year the city aims to pave at least four percent of its streets per year. The streets listed for 2018 cover about 3.6 percent, and Public Service Director Mike Andrako said the work the State of Ohio is doing this year on Route 38 will put 2018’s paving well over four percent.
“We’re pretty happy with this program,” he said.
Andrako noted that this is a preliminary list. The final list could look slightly different depending on the contract bids the city receives.
“If the bids come in low, there’s a possibility of adding a street,” he said. “If they come in high then we may end up losing a street. But for the most part, 90 percent of the streets shown here are going to be in the program.”
At a special finance committee meeting earlier this month, the city presented plans to ask for an additional $1 million to cover the costs of the 2018 paving program. According to officials, $500,000 is already budgeted.
In an interview with the Journal-Tribune after that meeting, Finance Director Justin Nahvi said the city generally waits until how its fiscal year ends before earmarking money for the road project. The budget is generally decided in November, before the city knows its December expenditures.
The city also wraps up its street evaluation in December, so it hasn’t yet determined the extent of the next year’s program.
“If you evaluate your needs versus your resources, you can tie them together right at the first of the year,” Nahvi said.
Every year city staff drives and rates every single street within city limits over the course of a few months. The ratings are meant to be objective. If a street received a certain score the year before, it can’t achieve anything higher than that unless it’s repaved.
Andrako said the project has worked well recently. Last year’s project knocked down the amount of “poor” rated streets from 13 to nine percent.
“We’re really making a lot of improvements with the poor streets specifically,” he said.
According to Andrako, other municipalities are interested in how the City of Marysville handles its paving. He said he’s spoken to other cities about Marysville’s program.
Andrako said correcting and repairing streets is a “passion” of his, and continued that he felt other cities aren’t paving as effectively.
Andrako said the city generally tries to go 25 years after paving a road before paving it again. Committee member Alan Seymour asked how long roads with older, less secure bases could last. Andrako said in repaving those roads, crews would simply notice when they come across a poor base and replace it.
“We’ve had to do that a couple times,” Andrako said.
Seymour also wondered what the value of paving an alleyway would be. He said garbage services don’t use alleys anymore to pick up trash. Andrako said residents that live along alleys often use them to go in and out of garages and driveways.
Seymour asked why the city wouldn’t simply use tar and chip to repair alleys. Andrako said repaving them is “super cheap.” City Project Manager Marc Dilsaver also said many of the city’s alleys have potholes and other defects, making tar and chip useless.
“We’re really just knocking off one or two alleys per year,” Andrako said. “We’re not putting a lot of money into them, but we’re trying to show we’re making some progress on the alleys.”