With an extra $1 million to spend during the next 12 months, Eugene's public works crews could patch a lot of potholes.
But there's a longer-lasting response to Eugene's pothole problem, one of the city's major issues and a hot topic in the mayoral election campaign.
Instead of spending $1 million to fill potholes, the city will spend most of the money putting new asphalt surfaces on some of Eugene's roughest streets.
"Think of it as a thin, black Band Aid that will result in a smooth road for a couple of years," said Public Works spokesman Eric Jones.
Responding to growing public concern about the poor condition of Eugene streets, the City Council last month approved spending an additional $1 million on pothole repairs.
Yet, in a break with past practice, Public Works Director Kurt Corey has decided to do more than pour $1 million into potholes, which he considers the most temporary way to repair streets.
Public Works crews will still patch individual potholes. But during the current fiscal year - which started July 1 -the city will spend most of the $1 million on repaving sections of the city's worst streets.
Corey estimated that money will pay for new surfaces on 5 miles of streets.
Corey's plan departs from past city practice because it will lead to fairly expensive repairs on streets that, until now, city maintenance crews largely ignored.
"It's a sea change for us," Jones said.
The city has been reluctant to invest in thesestreets because many of them don't meet city construction standards and lack proper drainage, curbs, gutters and sidewalks.
But most of Eugene's potholes are on these so-called unimproved streets. And Corey, with an extra $1 million, has decided to spend about 70 percent of the total, or about $700,000, to give them new surfaces.
Still, the new asphalt may last only a few years. The material can cover a street, but it doesn't address the fundamental defects that cause potholes in the first place, such as poor drainage or gaps in the underlying road bed, public works officials say.
Corey acknowledged that putting asphalt on badly deteriorated roads remains a short-term fix.
"It is not a particularly effective long-term strategy, but (it's) more efficient than regularly returning to the same street to patch and repatch individual potholes," Corey wrote to City Manager Jon Ruiz.
Jones said the new approach is challenging for public works engineers.
"On the one hand, it meets the desire that the public has for streets that are easier and safer to drive on, but it doesn't address the underlying problems that cause unimproved streets to deteriorate and fail," he said.
Engineers have yet to determine which of the roughest streets may be repaired first. In his memo to Ruiz, Corey named Bond Lane and Arcadia Drive in north Eugene and Berntzen Road in West Eugene as possible projects.
A street's condition, traffic volumes, pothole repair history and other factors will be consider in prioritizing which ones will be repaired in what order, Corey said.
Potholes still will be patched under Corey's plan. About $200,000 of the $1 million will be added to the $250,000 that the city annually spends on sealing cracks and filling potholes.
The rest of the $1 million - about $100,000 - will be spent to smooth some of the city's bumpiest intersections, such as East 18th Avenue and Patterson Street, Corey said, and intersections on Washington and Jefferson Streets.
The City Council tapped the city's building replacement fund - a reserve mainly meant to finance a new City Hall - for the $1 million to fix potholes. Councilors intend to draw on the same fund next year for another $1 million for pothole repairs.
However, the money doesn't solve the city's difficulty in paying for street repairs, or address the growing backlog of road work. It would cost $173 million to bring Eugene's 538-mile street network up to perfect condition, public works officials estimate.
The city relies on state and local gas taxes and developer charges, not property taxes, to pay for street work.
City councilors are thinking of submitting an $81 million street repair bond measure to voters in November to deal with the backlog. Bond measures are paid by property taxes. Councilors are to discuss the bond measure on July 16.
Nor will the $1 million help rebuild Crest Drive, Storey Boulevard and Friendly Street, three badly deteriorated unimproved streets in south Eugene.
That project, designed after a collaboration between area residents and city engineers, is estimated to cost about $6 million.Adjoining property owners are to be assessed $2.6 million, but the city still has yet to find $1.6 million out of its $3.4 million share.
Former Interim City Manager Angel Jones in April first proposed taking money from the building fund and applying it to street repairs.
In May, the city's budget committee took that proposal and, in an 8-7 vote, recommended to the City Council that $1 million be spent on potholes.
North Eugene Councilor Mike Clark opposed the recommendation, preferring that the money be spent on repaving streets rather than filling potholes.
Last week, Clark praised Corey's strategy. "This plan does a better job of making sure the roads with the most potholes get fixed," he said.
