$900 Million needed for road improvements (Houston, Dallas: 2014, construction, contractors)

[bencronin04]

http://cityhallblog.dallasnews.com/2...-choices.html/

[BigDGeek]

Dallas's roads are in appalling shape. Some roads in Richardson are too, but repairs are ongoing. My street is going to be resurfaced this spring...can't wait!

[bencronin04]

Yea, luckily ours was resurfaced just a year or two ago. Some streets are VERY bad though.

[EDS_]

1. Lots of really poor set aside vendors over the last 2/3/4/5 yrs in Dallas.
2. Really rough weather - wintery ice and rain and hot summers the last 3 years.
3. Very dry last three years.
4. Unending traffic.


We've got some work to do.

[Made_it_To_the_Metroplex]

ALL very true... Sometimes I can't believe a city with so much going on, so much $$ that MUST be rolling in from all the economic activity can have such third-world surface streets. I LOVE Dallas, but this aspect of the city has let me down royally!

[move4ward]

I am unfamiliar with Dallas road funding, so forgive me.

There have been a billions of dollars in new developments in Dallas proper since 2006. It's had more than any city in the country. Wouldn't the city's property tax collection increased substantially?

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by move4ward

I am unfamiliar with Dallas road funding, so forgive me.

There have been a billions of dollars in new developments in Dallas proper since 2006. It's had more than any city in the country. Wouldn't the city's property tax collection increased substantially?

The state and feds. fund most of the highway developments you are talking about. Surface streets, local bridges and alleys tend to be maintained and rebuilt with substantially more local money. During the recent economic downturn the city and county slashed road repair budgets and over the same period we've had awful weather so far as surface streets are concerned.

Slashing road budgets was the right thing to do but now it's time to get with it another two or three years at this pace would be disastrous.

I'm all for diversity and inclusion but some of the repairs made a few years ago in North Dallas by set-aside contractors have been total disasters, I'm talking complete failures. IMO if a well known larger contractor had been involved in some of these project they'd be looking at financial clawbacks or maybe prison. I recall a rebuilt section along Royal being repaired twice within a weeks of completion.

Long sections of Royal and Forest in particular need to be fixed now.

[BigDGeek]

Originally Posted by EDS_

The state and feds. fund most of the highway developments you are talking about. Surface streets, local bridges and alleys tend to be maintained and rebuilt with substantially more local money. During the recent economic downturn the city and county slashed road repair budgets and over the same period we've had awful weather so far as surface streets are concerned.

Slashing road budgets was the right thing to do but now it's time to get with it another two or three years at this pace would be disastrous.

I'm all for diversity and inclusion but some of the repairs made a few years ago in North Dallas by set-aside contractors have been total disasters, I'm talking complete failures. IMO if a well known larger contractor had been involved in some of these project they'd be looking at financial clawbacks or maybe prison. I recall a rebuilt section along Royal being repaired twice within a weeks of completion.

Long sections of Royal and Forest in particular need to be fixed now.

And Mockingbird. And Greenville.

[Johnhw2]

$800 Million really wont do a lot for a city this size but certainly beats nada. There has been signicant road upgrades/adds around the airport and now on 183 to the southern end of the DFW airport. Yes growth does increase property taxes as does rising property values but road construction/repairs are extremely expensive as all things requiring labor in this country.

I lived in Houston before moving here three plus years ago. One thing Bill White, mayor did was structure the agreements to get work done 24/7 with a huge bonus for early completion and a big penalty for being late to finish the projects. Also to unclog existing roads, the city had tow trucks on call and paid them to get accidents cleared quickly to increase capacity of existsing roads during rush hour. For city major streets, he had the lights syncronized to speed up traffic flow off the freeways as well. I recognize with all the various independent cities doing things like this in this metro pex are more challenging. Further I do not know if some of these steps have been put in place or rejected by DFW area governments

[BigDGeek]

Originally Posted by Johnhw2

$800 Million really wont do a lot for a city this size but certainly beats nada. There has been signicant road upgrades/adds around the airport and now on 183 to the southern end of the DFW airport. Yes growth does increase property taxes as does rising property values but road construction/repairs are extremely expensive as all things requiring labor in this country.

I lived in Houston before moving here three plus years ago. One thing Bill White, mayor did was structure the agreements to get work done 24/7 with a huge bonus for early completion and a big penalty for being late to finish the projects. Also to unclog existing roads, the city had tow trucks on call and paid them to get accidents cleared quickly to increase capacity of existsing roads during rush hour. For city major streets, he had the lights syncronized to speed up traffic flow off the freeways as well. I recognize with all the various independent cities doing things like this in this metro pex are more challenging. Further I do not know if some of these steps have been put in place or rejected by DFW area governments

Given my uncanny ability to hit every single red light when I'm driving on surface roads in Dallas...probably not!