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Today's Poll!Jefferson City road maintenance ‘harder to sell’
Size of budget has swelled in 60 years; staff size hasn’t
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Throughout the past few months, area residents have heard discussions on many new structures and services needed or wanted in Jefferson City. But some residents have made it clear they would like to see maintenance of current infrastructure the top priority.
During months of discussion on a now defeated half-cent economic development sales tax, the News Tribune received comments from readers pointing to needed maintenance or repairs of existing structures and roads that required attention, as well as funding.
But those types of infrastructure needs are rarely a focus in local campaigns and elections.
One easy way to spot a troubled street is a simple pothole.
Tell us about the potholes that are rattling your cars and your body every day and give us the locations and details about why the asphalt divit qualifies as one of the worst in the Capital City. Go to www.newstribune.com/pothole to enter your entry in the worst pothole in Jefferson City.
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Comments
wow 1 year, 2 months ago
I'll be darn......an indicator that somebody in charge is actually listneing and is gonna "DO THE RIGHT THING" to see that this place actually becomes a 21st century community!
rodinman 1 year, 2 months ago
Same thing was pointed out in the 2010 Citizen Survey that the coumcil members ignored.
JCsleeper 1 year, 2 months ago
Don't forget the dentists that have to replace fillings knocked out by JC streets.
JCLifer 1 year, 2 months ago
Why is it such a hard sell to get city staff and elected officials to take care of our town's infrasructure? The taxpayers have been howling for it for years. heck, this short list is missing many other city streets that dezparately need work. Id support a modest tax increase to fix our streets, sewers, sidewalks, parks, but I'll bet a little reprioritization in the budget would free up another million $ to do more repairs.
Thank you for finally addressing these needs.
spelchek 1 year, 2 months ago
The High St. bridge between the Truman Bldg and the fire department looks awesome.
gary_castor 1 year, 2 months ago
Tell us about the potholes that are rattling your cars and your body every day and give us the locations and details about why the asphalt divit qualifies as one of the worst in the Capital City. Go to newstribune.com/pothole to enter your entry in the worst pothole in Jefferson City.
JCsleeper 1 year, 2 months ago
The problem is not simply potholes. Whole blocks of streets are in disrepair. Filling in potholes generally leaves an uneven surface. Many streets have separation cracks (W. Edgewood), uneven concrete surfaces, badly overlayed sections (Tower between Westwood and Primrose) for examples. Utility repairs where squares are cut out, dug up and replaced leave blocks of bad streets.
JCLifer 1 year, 2 months ago
A pitiful street that exhibits everything you describe is Bald Hill Road from Clark Avenue to Eastland. That poor street hasn't had an overlay in the last 15 years, and it is covered with rough patches from utility cutouts and frequent water main breaks. The pavement is full of separation cracks, and the picture of the street guy repairing them by throwing a shovel of cold patch on the crumbled area is exactly the example of the quality repairs that are being done. You never see a roller to make any attempt to smooth it out-- just throw another shovel on it next month when the current shovel full washes out again.
The real sad thing is Bald Hill Road isn't on any list to be resurfaced. The road is crumbling and dangerous, but the city doesn't care. Guess no rich people live over there or no city "leaders".
viktorkowski 1 year, 2 months ago
you may need to place the link on your front page. I noticed nobody has bothered to submit any pictures yet.
JCLifer 1 year, 2 months ago
How about bringing out the results of the 2010 Citizen Survey and let's see what has been accomplished, and what is still desired???
mleroux 1 year, 2 months ago
Many commenters have brought up the 2010 Citizen Survey, asking what the city is doing with it now. We're looking into that, talking to city leaders and would like to know what your thoughts are. What did you get out of the survey, what did you hope the city got out of the survey? How would you like to see the city incorporate the survey responses into day-to-day operations and projects? Send your questions and comments on the topic to Madeleine Leroux at madeleine@newstribune.com.
Sequoia 1 year, 2 months ago
I have some comments on the 2010 Survey.
First, it represents a very small portion of the community. Only registered voters were eligible for the survey; only 2,000 surveys were mailed, only 708 were returned. So, the survey represents only about 1.7 percent of the city’s population. Almost half the responses were from people aged 46-66. The vast majority have lived here more than 21 years. That is, most respondents are pretty comfortable where they are. Nothing wrong with that, but I'd be wary of drawing out too many hard conclusions about how to move forward based on such a small sample. I'm not sure that public planning by committee of lay citizens is the best way to do urban planning. But, a committee designed to rubber-stamp pet projects is no good either.
Also, I felt that the questions encouraged people to think about projects in isolation from other issues. For example, what is the connection between a balanced city budget and urban development? Are projects like, say, the conference center, MSP or riverfront attractions part of a larger overall plan to increase the city’s tax base? If people favor “economic development” but oppose specific projects that may actually lead to economic development, then what are we to make of that?
This is the main reason why I think Transformation failed, and what I think is lacking in Jefferson City’s urban planning: What is the overall goal? What is the connection between specific projects? What is the return on investment? Higher property tax revenues? Higher quality of life? Attractions? How do individual projects fit into a larger vision?
Although I supported Transformation, I had a bad feeling it was a grab-bag of projects based on wish lists from local institutions, rather than a coherent plan towards a specific goal.
Learn from what other communities have done regarding long-range planning and short-range maintenance. Be prepared to put pet projects like Adrian's Island or the convention center on the chopping block. Focus on quality of life and return on investment.
JCLifer 1 year, 2 months ago
Madeleine Leroux, can you explain more about the "hard sell" your headline talks about? It doesn't seem to be a "hard sell" to the citizens who are begging for better street maintenance in this forum, or for the citizens who completed the 2010 Citizen Survey. It seems the only "hard sell" here is trying to get the council and city staff to follow the wishes of the community to repair the streets and infrastructure. The citizens recognize that the town needs maintenance and that maintenance is important. They have been asking for those things for years, but yet the council wants to work on convention centers, mud tunnels, uptown renovation, festival districts, and trolleys.
The council needs to review the budget for the rest of this year and see if they can re-prioritize some money from other stuff to get more roads repaired. Asphalt and labor won't be any cheaper next year-- we got to start working on this stuff before the roads turn back to gravel and mud, and prices climb even higher for materials and labor.
gary_castor 1 year, 2 months ago
The headline makes reference to a comment Britt Smith, operations division director, made in the full story in Sunday's News Tribune. The reference in the story was ....
But those types of infrastructure needs are rarely a focus in local campaigns and elections. Britt Smith, operations division director, said what’s often proposed is new roads or new buildings, something the public can rally behind. But when it’s a simple maintenance issue of repaving or repainting, the reaction from the public just isn’t the same, he said. “Maintenance is always something that is a little harder to sell,” Smith said. “Maintenance is often an overlooked portion.”
You can the complete story in Sunday's print edition.
melbrooks 1 year, 2 months ago
As of this writing, there is still not a single submission of a pothole. Hummm.
If city crews or contractors dig up a street to repair a sewer, they get criticized about the patch. If they don't fix the sewer, they get criticized about the sewer not being fixed. That's a tough position to be in.
I recently returned from a trip to Warrensburg, and if you think Jefferson City streets are rough, give it a try there.
Not all roads can be in good condition at all times, and it's actually inefficient to try to do so. One can liken it a business owner who replaces assets on a staggered basis for cash flow purposes as well as to wring as much usage out of asset as possible. MoDOT, Cole County & Jefferson City Public Works employ this concept.
I would suspect city public works staff use traffic counts as a primary consideration when looking at overlays. After all, the more wear and tear a road gets, the faster it wears out. (Of course, as quick call to any of these entities could tell you what criteria they use under what circumstances.)
Bald Hill Road was mentioned in a previous post. If one wanted to take enough initiative, it would be easy to find out that Bald Hill Road has an AADT (Annual Average Daily Traffic) count of somewhere between 992 and 1328, depending on the segment. That's much lower than the average of 4,670. As a matter of fact, the most traveled portion of Bald Hill Road ranks 253rd out of 345 street segments in terms of traffic. (The least traveled ranks 281st out of 345.) And that's likely why it's currently not scheduled for an overlay. It's not about who lives where, or how much money they may have. Please--enough with the class envy.
JCLifer 1 year, 2 months ago
Sounds like you might work for the city. Some very well-worn defenses brought up here: 1. No one complains, so there must not be a problem. 2. If we fix it (doing a poor job), we get complaints. 3. It isn't as bad as other towns. 4. It is unreasonable to expect that we can fix them all. 5. Engineering studies show that it isn't a very big problem. 6. Not that many people have to put up with it, so we are ignoring it.
How about a new paradigm? What if we quit finding reasons to say "no" or "it is how we've always done it" or "it is as good as we can do", we start working on a way to improve things around here? How about instead of dismissing comments and complaints from ordinary citizens we actually start to try to address them? How about we start working to learn about new materials, methods, and ways of doing things better?
That is what is wrong with this city. No one wants to do anything to improve anything, and the only people who get listened to are Uptown business people, Chamber, or good ol boy rich families.
You may argue that other public projects are much more economically feasible and that they make sense to you or your big money supporters. However, rough roads that we have to drive on, not having sidewalks, and having blight and decay in our neighborhoods is as important to many of us, as is having new sidewalks and park benches is to the uptown crowd. You think we are imposing crazy demands on you, but you are imposing crazy demands on us too. We don't want to pay for your mud tunnel or making a sandbar into a park. We don't want to pay for your conference center and hotel. We don't want to pay for St. Mary's and Lincoln to have nice newly remodeled ugly old hospital building. We don't want to pay for a trolley system,to shuttle you rich young professionals around from bar to bar.
A city is founded to take care of basic services like law enforcement, local transportation infrastructure, etc. Our basic services are in poor shape in this town, and we are just asking you to pull a little money and effort from the floff projects and spend them to rebuild the infrastructure and do a little maintenance. That is all.
melbrooks 1 year, 2 months ago
Wrong yet again. I do not work for the city.
What are well-worn are the constant barrage of complaints about road conditions and the class envy-based name calling: "you rich young professionals"; "your big money supporters", ad infinitum.
And as for your list of “defenses”—no one complains? Quite the opposite, as evidenced by the comments on these forums.
I gave a logical reason which may explain why the city does not have Bald Hill Road on the overlayment list, and you attack with name-calling and more class envy.
If you’re so unhappy with the city’s road conditions, call up Roger Schwartze at the city and ask him to have a beverage with you. Ask him how the city prioritized their overlay list. None of it will be about who lives where or how much money they have.
JCLifer 1 year, 2 months ago
.
JMO 1 year, 2 months ago
Okay, how about busy streets that are bad? Has anyone driven McCarty between the Truman building and Monroe? No potholes, but it's really rough. Lafayette to Dunklin is too. Dunklin is pretty bad in spots. Capital isn't terrible, but the sidewalks are pretty much impassable by wheelchair. There's plenty of street and sidewalk repair to be done.
JCLifer 1 year, 2 months ago
Dunklin from Jackson to Clark is horrible.
West Edgewood from Stadium to South Country Club Drive is like riding a bucking bronco.
These are both very busy streets that have been ignored for years.
viktorkowski 1 year, 2 months ago
There are just a number of places in town that get ignored on a regular basis. Usually those areas are in not the greatest section of town but do see heavy traffic. Instead of uploading pics I have decided to task one of my employees to setup a webpage and link to youtube account where citizens of jeff can upload their videos and pics of not just potholes but also areas with lack of sidewalk, sidewalk questionable, and down right deplorable street conditions. And inb4 class envy don't cut it anymore. Everyone pays taxes one way or other and deserve better for what they pay
melbrooks 1 year, 2 months ago
Are you sure that is a pothole? I think it has a steel cover over it.
melbrooks 1 year, 2 months ago
I drive by there often, so I stopped to look. It's a water meter cover.
I called the city to ask about it. The water company puts a ring and cap on the meter to match the pavement's height. It seems the additional ring often breaks, leaving the uneven surface.
JCLifer 1 year, 2 months ago
Maybe they need to try something different than doing something that often doesn't work?
melbrooks 1 year, 2 months ago
What solution would you suggest to the water company?
JCLifer 1 year, 2 months ago
Maybe they can ask their affiliates in other cities what products and repair methods they use for this type of issue. American Water is huge-- they have facilities in hundreds of cities around the country-- surely one of them has had experience with properly repairing manholes.
I would also also suggest they talk to the current supplier of these rings to see if they have some advice. Perhaps there is a better/stronger part available, or a better way of installing it. An experienced civil engineer may also know of some alternative resources for parts or repair methods that would be better.
This doesn't seem to be that hard to find or explore other solutions. Of course I do not know anything about repairing manhole rings or proper road maintenance. My experiences has taught me that there are many resources for common problems, and that anything can always be improved upon. I was educated with a W. Edwards Deming mind towards statistical thinking and continuous quality improvement, so I have a hard time accepting the status quo, especially if the status quo is not working.
lovemyboys 1 year, 2 months ago
FYI -- for all you complainers..on the City's website, you can go to the Street Dept section and report pot holes or missing road signs. I've done that numerous times and with 2 days, it's fixed. You know, they can't be everywhere just like the police can't be everywhere. It takes everyone to make it a better place. As for sidewalks, I don't know of any city/town that has sidewalks everywhere...if there is one, let me know. And, we have sidewalks in areas and joggers still jog in the middle of the road. Improvements take time. And, even if we had great roads, sidewalks all over town, etc...is that what would keep Young Professionals here?? NO! They want stuff to do. I'm not trivializing the need for good roads or sidewalks in heavily traveled areas, but no city/town has everything. People live where they do for various reasons...some want big cities, some like quiet country towns. Some want low crime, great schools, nice parks, etc...some want more night life.
lovemyboys 1 year, 2 months ago
No, I'm not a City employee either. On a side note: we went to Tulsa, OK last summer...their roads were nothing to brag about and it's a much larger city than JC.
viktorkowski 1 year, 2 months ago
used it before. even neighbors all around me used that website. Time to completion, 14 months. speeeedy. As far as sidewalks not being important. There are several schools in the area that don't have sidewalks in as little as a block away.
tonto_goldberg 1 year, 2 months ago
Yup. It's really hard to sell something like street maintenance that you don't want to do. No fancy dinner meetings, no fundraisers, no news coverage, no glamour.
JCLifer 1 year, 2 months ago
The county does a pretty good job of taking care of their roads. Maybe the city can learn something from the county street department. P
lovemykids 1 year, 2 months ago
There is a spot by Moreau Heights School on Hough Park Rd and Moreau Drive. You pass the school and go to turn right. Almost the entire right turn lane has become dangerous to drive on. It is such a big spot that it is hard to avoid as well.
JCLifer 1 year, 2 months ago
Railroad crossing on West McCarty. We are gonna lost a motorcycle rider very soon on that one.
wow 1 year, 2 months ago
Are you kidding me....the county roads are no better and in many case wore. Also there are noooooooooo sidewalks and street lights in the largesdt portion of these heavily populated county neighborhoods or between these neighborhoods. A person cannot walk or ride a bike/wheelchair from their home to Binder Lake without dodging the traffic...and at night all of this becomes an even bigger danger. There are no safe shoulders to use to change a tire or for the Cops to conduct their business. So NO THE COUNTY ISN'T ANY BETTER THAN THE CITY!!
JCLifer 1 year, 2 months ago
Oh good grief. People move to the county to get away from the amenities and the restrictions of the city. Of couse county streets do not have shoulders or sidewalks or handicap ramps.
The county roads I travel are more primitive, but they are usually in very good shape- they are much smoother and lacking in potholes than the city streets. Plus, you hardly ever see a county road cracking and crumbling- the county seems to stay on top of their roads and maintain them regularly. The city seems to build too much stuff and not take care of it as well. Taht is a point-- don't build more stuff than you can take care of, then no body wins with the general system in decay due to stretched resources.
JCLifer 1 year, 2 months ago
Dix Road from WalGreens to United Missouri Bank is a rough mess. The overpass is horrible, but the rest of the roadway is also very rough all over and broken up in spots. This is a very high-traffic road-- one would think it would receive priority for repairs and maintenance.
spelchek 1 year, 2 months ago
How about the mess on 179 at the 45 mph sign and Woodman...get er' done....
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