Construction season has brought its yearly influx of bright orange traffic cones and road flaggers indicating traffic delays and detours. Levies implemented in Hamilton and Springfield have allowed the cities to direct more funds towards road improvement.
In 2019, over half of Hamilton’s neighborhood streets were in poor condition, according to a pavement condition index. The following year Hamilton voted to implement a streets levy based on property tax, which added over $3 million annually to go toward road investment on top of the $2 million per year the city was already spending.
In the early 2000s, Allen Messer, Hamilton’s head engineer, said the city cut street maintenance funding as manufacturing jobs left the area.
“It got to the point that, as some of the industries left, most of the money was going just towards basic services,” Messer said. “Unfortunately, resurfacing was one of the things that fell to the backburner as the city turned the corner.”
Those larger employers and factories had previously brought in tax revenue to the city, said Messer
“As [the businesses] left, the city had to reimagine itself. It's taken a number of years to get back to where the city once was,” he/she said.
In 2017, one-fifth of Ohio’s roads were rated not acceptable according to the Bureau of Transportation. The most recent rating, in 2021, cited a 3% improvement.
Springfield is also working to improve the conditions of its roads. In 2021, about two-thirds of the roads were rated acceptable to drive on, according to a report ordered by the city.
The city introduced a 0.4% income tax levy in 2017 which was renewed in 2021. The levy has allowed Springfield to commit to at least $2 million toward road work per year.
Chris Moore,Springfield’s Service Director, said his office receives substantial community input and uses the information to focus its road repair efforts.
“We try our best to address every concern in some form or fashion,” Moore said. “It is very difficult for a midwestern community to keep all of their roads up to a standard that makes everyone happy. That's part of living in an area where the earth freezes and falls multiple times a winter.”
Pothole whac-a-mole
Springfield takes questions and road repair requests through their Service Center phone number. Moore said the city’s crew can fill a reported pothole within 48 hours.
“They have a little dump truck with some cold asphalt in the back. They have a roller, paver, and a little plate compactor,” he said. “We try to make sure they have all the tools they need for what needs to be done.”
If a Springfield road needs to be completely resurfaced, the project is bid out to a contractor, which can take some time depending on the availability of certain contractors. A simple paving of a road could take six months if the work is contracted out, he said.
Hamilton used around $300,000 of this year’s budget on a new paving and a new milling machine.
Allen Messer, said, in the past, crews had to return multiple times to fill potholes on the same streets. The improved equipment allows for the team to resurface an entire road.
“Now, they don't have to come back for hopefully ten, 15 years to the same spot,” he said.
The new paver is able to pave a road in two passes instead of three. And the milling machine directly dumps milled asphalt into a dump truck as the machine is running, saving workers time and energy.
“Before, we milled the pavement and then it had to be scooped up and put into a truck,” Messer said. “It was much more labor intensive and time consuming. We're definitely able to get a lot more done.”
The city has diverted some crews from their usual street sweeping and pothole repair duties to work with the new paving and milling machines, resurfacing entire roads.
Springfield also has a paving machine and is able to allocate about two weeks toward the end of the season for in-house repaving projects.
“We start making a list throughout the summer, and when we get to late September early October, we will focus on those roads that we can go out and take care of ourselves,” Moore said. “They will grind an area at each end to make sure there's a smooth transition and start hauling trucks of asphalt. If we go in, they can do several blocks in a day.”
As the summer comes to a close, and temperatures cool, the asphalt plants close. Moore says that’s a good time to start repairing cracks, hoping to limit further repairs
“It's great wintertime work. The cracks are bigger. We also, most years, will do a crack filling contract with a contractor to come in. We give them a list of all the roads we paved five years ago.”
Years of coordination and planning
This year, Springfield budgeted $3,083,935 to its Neighborhood Streets Program, which has contracted projects on Saint Paris Pike and South Yellow Springs Road.
“On the South Yellow Spring streak, we are doing a major reconstruction, to the extent where we dig up the entire roadway, all the curbs, and replace the underground utilities.” said Moore. “That is by far our biggest project this year, so there are a lot of factors that go into it.”
Larger projects require coordination with utility companies, including Columbia Gas of Ohio which has been replacing all of the steel gas lines in the city.
Moore said some projects can take years because of the research and planning required for state and federal funding.
Hamilton spreads their levy funding proportionally between their 17 neighborhoods: if one neighborhood has more streets, it will receive more funding.
The city website shows where they’ve already used and plan to use their $31 million in levy investments.
“Road resurfacing is one of our top priorities,” Allen Messer said. “There's been a greater effort to receive input from citizens with more outreach. And as a result of that, we've got better information about what people want. Our citizens voted for a street levy and they want accountability for how those funds are spent, that they're spent fairly and spread across the city.”