Friday afternoon, Sept. 13, 2024, on 14th Avenue between Heritage Mall on the left and Heritage Plaza on the right. Note the new pavement.
Friday found the bike and me pretty much in the middle of Albany’s retail commercial center, enjoying the new asphalt pavement on Clay Street and 14th Avenue.
What you often hear is that the City of Albany doesn’t have money to fix the streets. That common refrain is true and refers to local, residential streets in the older parts of town.
The city demonstrates just about every year that it does have money to fix and maintain the most heavily used streets. Putting available funds into some of those streets makes sense because, well, they are the streets with the heaviest traffic.
In this case, RiverBend Construction of Eugene is improving sections of 14th Avenue, Clay Street and Geary Street under a city contract totaling $1,968,000.
In the words of the summary in the invitation to bid, the project “includes approximately 8,500 linear feet of 2-inch asphalt grind and inlay, curb ramp replacements, traffic signal modifications, striping and signing, minor utility adjustments and related appurtenances.”
I’m not sure about the nature of those “related appurtenances.” But in any case, the paving portion is being done at night. It started this week and is supposed to be complete by the end of next week, Sept. 20.
The rest of the work, presumably including any appurtenances, has to be finished by Nov. 1, according to the contract.
The pavement on 14th wasn’t in terrible shape to begin with. But now it’s going to be supersmooth, at least for a while. (hh)
What about Seven mile lane?
It appears to have been ready to pave most of the summer, what’s the problem?
@ the Selmet entrance.
None of these needed projects happen overnight. It takes *years* for a project to move up the food chain to be done. Easy to check where they are targeted to happen via the city Capital Improvement Program website:
https://albanyoregon.gov/pw/engineering/capital-improvement-program
Sounds like excuses for a slow working local government.
“8,500 linear feet of 2-inch asphalt grind and inlay” Looking forward to riding this on my skinny tires. Worth every penny from someone coming in on 20 miles of Linn County chip-seal. Thank you Albany. Note it as a bike-tourist destination and recoup a little of your collective, civic investment. You deserve it.
Southwest Fir Oaks is a mess and feeds into much of SW Albany from 29th. I would love to see someone get this on the list. I see that people have filled a few potholes on their own. Sad to see.