On the road in South Albany on the Saturday before Labor Day.
On the Saturday before Labor Day, the bike took me on a little tour of South Albany streets, where I found some of the pavement is in no better shape than in the oldest parts of town.
I started on 39th Avenue near South Albany High School, wound my way through the neighborhood west of there and, 16 minutes later, ended up on Thurston Street near 34th.
For years now, most of the complaints about poor pavement have been about the century-old streets on the east side of downtown. In South Albany, the streets I toured are only 50 or 60 years old, but there too the pavement is breaking up.
Houses along Southeast 38th Avenue and nearby streets were built in the 1960s and ’70s. The ones I checked have a market value of about $350,000 to $450,000, with an assessed value for tax purposes of between $180,000 and $225,000, according to the Linn County assessor.
Pavement maintenance has been neglected since the streets were built, just like in Albany’s historic districts.
Thirty-eighth Avenue and several nearby streets turn up in a list of 200 street segments that Albany Public Works Director Paul Trambino would like to see repaired over the next four years if the city collects a street maintenance fee starting next July.
(The list is attached to the agenda packet for the Aug. 12 meeting of the city council. You can look it up here. The list starts on Page 76.)
At that meeting, four councilors said they would like to act on a resolution setting the fee at a future meeting, but no date was set. Councilman Michael Thomson said he did not support a fee and would like an election on a local gas tax first.
On my South Albany bike tour Saturday, I found a very nice neighborhood of family homes, quiet and great for taking a walk or getting around on a bike. If you want, come along for the ride: (hh)
The fee’s & gas tax…as they say…kicked the can down the road agian….nothing will happen this year…..same as the last ten years….Thanks for the bike ride video..
Yet they just spent a bunch of $ on Hill street between 9th & Queen. Why?
Also updated ADA curbs to new standards and ignore intersections that have ZERO ADA curbs. I’m sure people that require them would prefer to have an “old style” and spend the money on those intersections. It’s pretty stupid when your ADA curbs are 6 or more blocks apart.
I find it interesting that the city of Albany has no money for street repairs, but they have money to create many new positions (within the last 10 years) that they don’t necessarily need!
Well you toured my neighborhood, Hasso. My house was two over on 35th, so you missed it. Yes a nice little older neighborhood and we actually have nice sized backyards! You mentioned the pavement got better when you got to the section around 35th on Thurston. I wish you would have rode down 35th to see the difference. Some history: My house and the first section of this area was Jeffery Addition. The first section of homes were model homes built in 1968-69. Then the development about a block down 35th and around the corner to 38th, including 36th was built by Republic Development. So they must of used a lower street standard as that pavement has not held up as well as the first section of homes. You will remember Republic Development when they went out of business from the 80’s recession and they had all of the foundations built on Columbus Street and the city foreclosed on the properties, which is now Deerfield. The homes on Tudor Way were a different developer and seeing the street in your video, that pavement looks even worse. Those homes were built in the later 70’s, so the pavement is newer than on my street, yet worse. I’d be curious to know what the city requires for pavement standards today compared to 50-60 years ago?
Also off the street topic, this neighborhood was originally all 2-3 bedrooms, one bath homes with a double garage. 1000 sq ft starter homes. Almost every home has been added onto. As much as the planners and state want small homes, it just isn’t desirable today for families and even since the 80’s when we added on to our home. Big yards were also desirable back then and they still are in this neighborhood. Great tour, Hasso!
It’s interesting to note that the most “tourist” streets of Albany are the most maintained.
The quiet streets, and the 70’s era nicer neighborhoods of Albany are ignored. It’s frustrating for sure of those young mortgage owners that are hopefully trying to improve their properties only to have their streets be a huge determinant on resale potential.
The city needs to step up on road maintenance…spread the wealth of those tax dollars and give us a break please!
Perhaps city hall should adopt a “fix-it-first” policy that legally prioritizes funding the fixing of existing streets from the development taxes that are collected when a new street gets built.
The taxes are collected from contractors/developers and passed on to the new homeowners. They fund nebulous, future city “master plans” and “capital improvements.” A politician’s dream world.
Real maintenance needs come first. Expanding future city government comes second.
A big opportunity missed when the city did not use CARA funds to update all of the streets within the urban renewal district. Would have been perfectly legal but not as exciting as handing out money to select property owners or doing downtown beautification projects.
CARA didn’t, or wasn’t supposed to, work like that.
CARA was financed through Tax Increment Financing (TIF). CARA creates a debt obligation (sells an urban renewal bond) and then pays the debt off with the increased property tax revenue.
In other words, CARA was created to help PRIVATE property owners increase the value of their PRIVATE property through a sweet deal (give them money or stuff to add to their PRIVATE property.
Fixing public streets is nice, but you can’t draw a straight line from the street “investment” to an incremental increase in the PRIVATE property tax base.
CARA also creates a “hand out, palm up” mentality amongst developers looking for free money.
Taxable property values went up throughout the life of CARA. In fact they went up more in the non CARA parts of town than within the CARA boundary. Cities all over Oregon use urban renewal to improve existing infrastructure.
See the picture of the street that looks all crackled? It didn’t look like that a month ago? That is caused by running their equipment down the side streets. Same thing happened when they were working on Hill street up near 9th. They moved their equipment down 10th ave to park and store them and now look at 10th Ave SE, looks worse than it did month ago.
What are they going to do about that?
Ditto on 14th. They’ve gouged the slurry seal that was installed about a year ago.