Season closing in on Paving For Progress

CEDAR RAPIDS — Frost has hit, the last of the leaves are falling and school kids are lining up to help city crews paint snow plow blades in preparation for what is to come.

That means, too, that the street construction season is drawing to an end — Nov. 1 is something of an official date in Cedar Rapids to call it quits on street repairs.

And for Public Work Director Jen Winter, she'll have to get used to hearing something different.

'People have joked with me all summer that they can't get anywhere without having to go through a construction zone,' Winter said. 'Which I think is very positive. It shows we are getting to a lot of places, we're getting to different sections of town, to residential streets and arterial streets. We've been able to spread this revenue out and make an impact across the city.'

'This revenue' is a reference to the city's still-young, 10-year, $180-million Paving for Progress program, which voters put in place beginning in summer 2014 after approving a 1-percent local-option sales tax to fix streets.

The sales tax revenue did not start to roll in for the program until after July 1, 2014, and so the 2015 construction season was the first full one for Paving for Progress after the city completed some 'quick-start' projects in 2014.

As of Sept. 30, the city had spent $20.4 million on Paving for Progress projects — $7 million in 2014 and $13.4 million in 2015.

Paving for Progress projects, 2015/2016

The city lists 43 projects it has gotten to so far, including the last of this season's work on a section of Midway Drive NW.

The list for the upcoming 2016 construction season numbers 16 larger projects for which the city will hire outside contractors. The city estimates it will complete 10 to 15 additional sections of residential streets using in-house crews.

Paving for Progress did not come easily. In May 2011, voters by a narrow margin — 221 votes out of 31,931 cast — rejected a 20-year proposal to use local-option sales taxes to fix streets and help with flood protection. Then in March 2013, voters rejected a sales tax request for 10 years for flood protection. Then in November 2013, they approved a 10-year tax for streets. More than 62 percent of voters agreed.

It is a new city election campaign, and the seven candidates in the competitive hunt for three City Council seats, including three incumbents, are weighing in on Paving for Progress.

The incumbents — Scott Olson, chairman of the Infrastructure Committee, Ann Poe, a committee member, and Susie Weinacht — have said that Paving for Progress is working as intended. It has assembled data — with help of a laser analysis of all the streets — and has employed a strategy over 10 years to reconstruct the worst, to rehabilitate the less-than-worst and repair those in even better shape to keep them from becoming 'worst' streets, they have said.

Weinacht has called the program 'impartial and data-driven,' and Olson said the program operates outside of politics. He has said the city's engineering staff would hang up on him if he tried to get a pet project moved up.

Among the challengers for the City Council, west-side District 4 candidate Lisa Kuzela has said the city policy should 'fix the worst first,' while at-large candidate Wade Wagner has said the city focus needs to be on the reconstruction of busy arterial streets.

'These are highly visible, welcoming landmarks and necessities in our city that leave huge impressions on visitors and those who may want to invest in Cedar Rapids,' Wagner has said.

Doug Wilson, the city's capital improvement project manager who heads up Paving for Progress, said the program is designed with both the worst and not-yet-worst streets in mind.

He said the program, which was approved unanimously by the nine-member City Council, consists of a mix of street preservation and street replacement with the idea that it makes sense to extend the life of streets in disrepair so they don't fail even as it reconstructs streets that have failed.

Spending all the Paving for Progress dollars over 10 years on reconstruction would result in many more streets needing reconstruction because they have not been repaired to extend their life, he said.

'If we don't do it that way, at the end of 10 years, we're not any better off overall in the city than when we started, even though we're spending $180 million,' Wilson said.

With that in mind, he said the city expects to invest about 45 percent of the Paving for Progress dollars in street reconstruction, 45 percent in less-costly rehabilitation and 10 percent in even less-costly maintenance. About 60 percent of the work will be done on residential streets and 40 percent on arterial streets.

In 2014 and in the first full season of the program in 2015, he said the city has not worked on many 'worst' streets because those projects, which require reconstruction, require a lot of preconstruction design work. That work includes the evaluation of everything under the street, such as water and sewer lines, which often need to be rebuilt as part of the project, he said.

In 2016, the city lineup of projects includes the reconstruction of several worst streets. Among them are 42nd Street NE from Wenig Road NE to Interstate 380; two phases of work on West Post Road NW; B Avenue NW from Highland Drive NW to Eighth Street NW; and Oakland Road NE from H Avenue NE to J Avenue NE.

Winter said it is 'good stewardship' of tax dollars to make sure that street maintenance and rehabilitation are part of the program along with reconstruction.

At the same time, she said the program is 'a living document' designed to be re-evaluated along the way as new data comes in. Some streets will move up and down the priority list.

In the bigger picture, Winter said Cedar Rapids and its residents should not lose sight of how lucky they are to have sales tax revenue approved to fix streets, at a time when she said the American Society of Civil Engineers continues each year to rate roads across America at or near a grade of D.

'The first thing we need to consider is how fortunate we are to have this program in the city because there are a lot of cities across America that are still struggling,' Winter said.

Next year's major projects are:

• Sixth Street SW from the Linn County line to Capital Drive SW.

• McCarthy Road SE from 19th Street SE to Memorial Drive SE.

• Edgewood Road NW from E Avenue NW to F Avenue NW

• 42nd Street NE from Edgewood Road to Interstate 380.

• O Avenue NW from Ellis Boulevard to 16th Street NW (retaining walls).

• 74th Street NE from White Ivy Place NE to C Avenue NE

• B Avenue NW from Highland Drive NW to Eighth Street NW.

• 42nd Street NE from Interstate 380 to Wenig Road

• Oakland Road NE from H Avenue NE to J Avenue NE.

• Seventh Street SE and Eighth Street SE from A Avenue NE to 12th Avenue SE (phase 2).

• West Post Road NW from Plainview Drive NW to E Avenue NW (phases 1 and 2).

• 29th Street Drive SE from First Avenue East to Tama Street SE.

• 14th Avenue SE from 36th Street SE to 42nd Street SE.

• Mount Vernon Road SE from Memorial Drive SE to 10th St SE (phase 1).

• Eighth Avenue SW from L Street SW to Seventh Street SW