One block of Southwest 12th Avenue has smooth new pavement, as seen on Sunday evening, Oct. 20, 2024.
For many years, a section of 12th Avenue in West Albany was notorious for its plentitude of potholes. On Sunday I discovered that the City of Albany did something about it.
The poor condition of many local streets is the reason the City of Albany is now preparing to impose a new street maintenance fee. Once the council agrees on the rates, the fee will be added to the monthly bills for water and other services.
Usually, the city street crew is limited to filling potholes one by one. So when I rode the bike up 12th Avenue west of Elm Street on Sunday night, I wondered how come there was a whole block of new pavement covering both driving lanes of the street.
Robb Romeo, transportation manager in Albany Public Works, told me the story:
“This was one of the areas City street maintenance staff paved this summer with our new paver. It was paved in late August. This particular area was paved because we spent an abundance of time on this section pothole patching the previous winter. We were able to borrow a skid steer from another work group and rented an attachment to grind 1.5 inches of asphalt on the sides of the street to allow us to tie in the new asphalt patch. This street really needs full reconstruction, but this is an inexpensive way to give the road a better ride over the worst parts until we can make the necessary improvements. For this patch on 12th Ave we used around 47 tons of asphalt, which is around $3,000 of material plus three City staff and three temporary summer help for several days’ work.”
This was on the block of 12th Avenue between Elm and Willetta streets.
Drivers on 12th no doubt appreciate the improvement. In the summers to come, let’s hope many other local streets get that treatment too. (hh)
Give 3rd Ave. between Montgomery and the roundabout a ride sometime. That’s one of the worst.
You’ll notice that that residential street (12th) was fixed in “S.W.” Albany where the elite live. The “Hackleman” District to the east of Lyon and Ellsworth Streets is almost impassable, because the streets are so bad, and I don’t think the City even patches those streets.
There’s no political pressure to do anything about residential streets on east side of original Albany’s residential district. And the city didn’t say a damned thing about fixing 12th Street until you stumbled (rode, that is) onto it, Hasso. Good for you. The city wanted to keep it quiet that they fixed a portion of 12th Street, SOUTHWEST.
Got any PROOF of your claims?
Of course not. It’s a lot easier to dream up conspiracies without any evidence.
Jackson St needs it bad
They did some repaving by cumberland church and put in a handicap access on the corner. They want to make it easy for people to use the church for activities. The city is very selective on who gets any maintenance done. Only part of the street was repaved in front of the church, the youth non-profit and habitat for humanity.
There are many residential streets with big issues and in need of repair. The City would be wise to put all the streets in need of repair into a lottery. That way nobody can claim that one or another part of town is being favored over another. This would build additional goodwill as we start to pay the street fee in our taxes. When we connect the taxes to pay with what we receive, that was a long way toward good will.
There are many residential streets with big issues and in need of repair. The City would be wise to put all the streets in need of repair into a lottery. That way nobody can claim that one or another part of town is being favored over another. This would build additional goodwill as we start to pay the street maintenance fee. When we connect the taxes or fees we pay with what we receive it helps in the trust department.
The City prepares a long list of proposed street rebuilding that is taken to the Council every year as part of the budget. The streets are rated by engineers on a scale of amount of deterioration, amount of use, and the costs to remedy the problem. There has NEVER been enough money available to take care of all the needs.
It is detailed as part of the Transportation System Plan and each year the projects are shown in the Budget. Anyone with a computer can see it online.
https://albanyoregon.gov/pw/projectmap
Quit bitching about the city. Quit MAKING UP idiotic statements pitting one part of town against the other WITHOUT any proof. START acting like a reasonable human being and get involved with the process instead of attacking government without having participated in the process which is open to every person in the city.
In other words, grow up and be a part of the solution instead of making the problem worse.
Sorry for being so strident, that isn’t about you personally.
I sat through so many Council meetings that I have lost my patience with people who jsut don’t understand that government wants their input up front.
Part of Fulton St near the liquor store got a partial repave a couple months ago.
The reason for not doing some upgrades is because, if the project is over a certain limit, state and federal regulations start making things more expensive. If they do a full repave of a street (as opposed to just doing the driving lanes) then they are required to upgrade the sidewalks to add handicap access on all four corners. And, over a certain limit, City staff can’t do the upgrade themselves, and are required to hire it out and pay insanely high “prevailing wages” for the contractors. Once they add all those regulations, they’re paying $40k for just the corner upgrades alone (around $10k per corner). And that’s before they start paving the street.