City ramps up street resurfacing projects

The City of El Paso plans to more-than-double the rate at which it resurfaces streets.

New investments mean the city will re-pave 114 streets from 2017-2018.

“We are making it a priority,” Mayor Dee Margo said, “It’s what is important.”

According to a news release, the Street Resurfacing Program issues contracts for two years instead of one to allow the city to re-pave more streets and spend less time on the bidding process to contract out the work.

In 2013, the city re-paved 34 streets at a cost of $3,267,000; In 2014, 63 streets at a cost of $7,766,732; and 51 streets from 2015-2016 for $5,140,203.

“We’ve been empowered by management to get our bidding done and get our operations in line and get out there and get working,” said Richard Bristol, deputy director of the Streets and Maintenance Department.

The road maintenance treatment provides streets with another 25 years of useful life, officials said.

Moving forward, the city will be conducting a new study to determine which streets have a higher priority. A Pavement Condition Index survey will evaluate all of the streets and grade them on a scale of 1 to 100. If, for example, a street graded at 80 in 2008, in 2017 that street could be anywhere between 70 or 40 because pavement deteriorates over time.

Pothole repairs are also happening at a faster rate.

“They have accelerated from the pothole standpoint, they have new equipment,” Margo said. “They have gone to 500 (pothole repairs) a week or something like that. Something of much greater magnitude on the potholes.”