(INDIANAPOLIS) – Indy will pour $25 million into rebuilding the city’s worst roads next year.
Most of the city’s road and street budget has focused on main arteries. Less-traveled neighborhood streets have gotten an average of $10 million a year over the last five years. The city will dip into reserve funds to spend two-and-a-half times that, to rebuild 60 miles of the worst roads in the city.
The 25 City-County Councillors will get lists of the worst roads in their districts — stretches which are scored 15 or lower on the Army Corps of Engineers’ zero-to-100 scale. Department of Public Works director Dan Parker says the list includes “a lot of zeroes” and a total of 600 miles of streets in need of repairs, with some that haven’t been touched since Richard Lugar was mayor a half century ago. Council members will submit lists of their top priorities for final Public Works approval.
Each district will have about a million dollars to work with, give or take. Parker says the amounts range as high as $1.3 million or as low as $750,000, based on a formula incorporating the district’s median household income and how much bad road it has. Parker notes districts with large chunks of independent cities like Lawrence or Beech Grove will end up on the lower end because there are fewer streets under Indy’s authority to begin with.
Parker says the work won’t be a simple repaving, but a full reconstruction.
Council members’ recommendations are due in about two weeks. The full council will ratify the plan June 10, with construction taking place next year.
