Start of sales-tax-for-streets paving project delayed

The official kickoff to the five-year, $250 million paving project in Colorado Springs won’t begin this week as originally scheduled.

Corey Farkas, manager of the city’s Streets Division, said Tuesday that paving will start in two weeks, on May 16.

Farkas cited the need to dry out from recent storms, and final negotiations with the project’s two contractors, as factors in the decision.

“We still have some final touches on contracts,” he said. “On a program of this magnitude, we want to do everything right at the beginning. Once we do that, we’ll hit the ground running.”

Farkas said recent wet weather has worsened the pothole situation.

“We’ve filled around 20,000 potholes this year,” he said. “It’s almost exactly where we were a year ago.”

The city still has eight daily crews dedicated to pothole repair.

The paving project, to be financed with a sales tax increase approved by voters last fall, is designed to reduce the need for constant pothole repairs on many streets.

In a related matter, workers finished a maintenance paving project on South Academy Boulevard near Sand Creek, one of the areas in greatest need of improvement.

The project extends the use of that route until the city rebuilds it within the next two years.

The city is using $24,000 from the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority to pay for the project.