KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City, Missouri, Public Works Department already had a list of roads to consider repaving in the upcoming fiscal year when potholes began popping up over the winter.
Now, the department is taking another look at that list.
On Monday, crews worked to repair potholes in the area of Longview and Grandview roads on the city's south side. It was a welcome sight for Trista Taylor, who sees drivers dodge these craters from her living room window.
"It’s great to hear that they’ll finally be able to repair them,” Taylor said. “I’ve seen a lot of people swerving to go around them and blocking off traffic. Seeing it’s such a narrow street and there’s no sidewalks, it’s kind of hard when people are walking too.”
As pesky as they are, potholes play a role in determining which roads will soon get a makeover.
"Potholes indicate pavement conditions," said Maggie Green, a spokeswoman for the KCMO Public Works Department. "We’re (also) looking at average daily trips, so how many cars are traveling on our roadways."
On Thursday, city leaders will consider approving $12.4 million of the $16 million budgeted for street resurfacing — an increase from last year’s budget, which set aside $10.8 million for street preservation.
"There was a little bit of an increase from last fiscal year to this fiscal year,” Green said. “We’re excited to be able to do resurface more lane miles this year with that increased budget.”
Currently, the Public Works Department is working on a map that will show what roads will be repaved.
"Ward Parkway got resurfaced with last year’s funding, and that was kind of in response to the amount of requests that we had had about Ward Parkway, the deteriorating pavement conditions that we were hearing a lot about," Green said.
The final list will be released to the public on May 1.
"I think that should be something that they should concentrate on is not just putting a Band-Aid on and hoping it’ll go away, (but) actually fixing that section of the road, so they don’t have to deal with it again," Taylor said.
KCMO street preservation budget
2018-2019 (last year): $10.8 million
2019-2020 submitted this year: $17 million (with $500,000 set aside for Complete Streets projects and $500,000 for Parks and Recreation parking lots). This means $16 million will go to street preservation in the next fiscal year.
