PAVING THE WAY FOR SMOOTH ROADS

If you’ve driven around town lately, you’ve noticed the broken and dangerous curbs and gutters, dangerous debris in and alongside the roadway and potholes that are overtaking our city streets.   Other than crime, homelessness and affordable housing, overburdened and crumbling city streets are frequently the talk of the town. Worse yet, they are symptoms of problems that only and expensive to fix the longer they are ignored.  We understand that our weather is unpredictable.  Snow, ice, freeze, melt, sun, hail, wind, rain are all hard on asphalt. But if we prioritize low-cost maintenance procedures we can save taxpayers millions of dollars compared to the expense of premature roadway failure.

I’ve also heard a lot of citizen frustration in reporting and tracking potholes and street repairs. That’s wrong.  Citizens who drive our streets every day can spot developing problems and it should be easy to report them before they become dangerous and expensive.  The City’s website is difficult to navigate and the GoCOS app is limited to one pothole and picture per report. As our Mayor, my commitment to you is to improve the reporting, tracking and transparency of our critical street maintenance operations. With our citizens able to report potholes and broken curbs before they get worse.  Working in tandem with our public works department we will have a successful team approach that will save money and improve public safety on our city streets.  According to the city website there are  6,327 lane miles of roadway, 2, 870 miles of curb and gutter, 36 lane miles of unimproved roadways, 1,231 alleys, 303 miles of open drainage channels and 706 miles of underground storm systems in our city.  

Here are just a few improvements I will champion for public works road maintenance issues:

• Review and improve access to report road and maintenance issues via phone, email, and website

• Establish a “Pothole Patrol” partnership with city staff and citizens to identify concerns and priorities

• Regular status updates on road and repair complaints and projects to both citizens and City Council

• Prioritization of road repairs with online status reports that are easily accessible to the public

• Improve coordination with Colorado Springs Utilities on street cuts and road restoration repairs

• Improve street overlay coordination with Colorado Springs Utilities to avoid “re-do” projects

• Improve coordination with dangerous trip hazard sidewalk repairs and replacements due to City tree roots

• Review disability ramp installations to ensure ramps where none exist are the priority

These are just a few of the items I will tackle as our Mayor that will help us pave the way to better efficiencies and a transparent city government.