‘The Road Warrior’ details specifics of Pueblo’s street paving list for 2024
PUEBLO, Colo. (KRDO) -- A week after officials released the list of ten city streets to be repaved this year, KRDO 13's Scott Harrison, The Road Warrior, provides a closer look at some of the highlights.
A mile-long stretch of Dillon Drive, north of Elizabeth Street, will get a fresh layer of asphalt; the narrow, two-lane road goes through several neighborhoods on the north side of town.
"I've lived here since 2018 and it has gotten worse," said Jeff Schmidt, who lives in the North Point Estates community. "They've done temporary pothole filling, but then that erodes and you have an even bigger pothole. Hitting some of the bumps, I felt like it was going to knock my teeth out. So, I'm glad it's getting repaved.
Another street on the list is more than 1.5 miles of Northern Avenue, between Interstate 25 in Prairie Avenue, on the city's south side; the pavement is rough because of utility work recently completed in preparation for the repaving.
"I go out of my way to avoid Northern," said Gerald Duarte. I've had to fix the suspension of my car and buy new tires because of the damage from the street."
Andrew Hayes, Pueblo's public works director, said that the city's annual budget for paving is around $10 million.
"$7.5 million of that comes from the city's general fund," he explained. "$2.5 million comes from our highway user tax fund allotment that comes from the state. We also have a street repair utility that, up until 2021, was generating revenues for the city. The City Council suspended those fees for 2022 and 2023, and extended that for 2024. There's discussions about how we raise funds for roads."
Unlike Colorado Springs, Pueblo doesn't have additional taxpayer-approved-and-funded infrastructure programs (2C and the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority).
Hayes said that paving is prioritized not only by road condition, but by how much traffic it carries.
"We don't focus on the ones that are the worst, necessarily, but the ones that are in a condition that if we wait longer, the repairs get more expensive," he said. "As you go down the list and the road conditions get worse, the repairs get more expensive by orders of magnitude. So, we want to catch them before they get real bad."
West 24th Street, Hayes said, is an example of roadway that had to be completely rebuilt because it was in such poor condition.
"As bad as Dillon and Northern are, Lakeshore Avenue is probably one of the worst," he said. "When we can rebuild that, and find the money to do it, depends on plans for future development in that area."
The city also plans to build three roundabouts this year: At Dillon and Elizabeth, at Berkley and Mesa avenues, and at Lake & Orman avenues.
Finally, Hayes said that potholes are a far lesser problem than they are in and around Colorado Springs.
"We have three daily crews and that's enough to handle them -- and our citizens do a great job of reporting them to us promptly." he said.
