MILTON — The Santa Rosa Board of County Commissioners recently implemented a gas tax increase. Now, Milton officials plan to use the extra revenue toward city roads listed in poor condition.
The council had been provided a list of all city-maintained roads deemed in ‘failing’ or ‘poor’ condition, according to Milton Public Works Director George Rials.
“Most of our failing roads were in areas that resurfacing would be of no benefit.” Rials said. “These were roads where we needed to go in and rebuild the road.” The ‘failing’ roads were taken out of consideration in hopes of attaining grant funding to complete them, leaving only ‘poor’ roads to address, he said.
With the exception of Berryhill Road, Rials said most of the city roads in need are located in local neighborhoods. By determining how much traffic each considered road receives — based on the number of connecting residential properties — city staff later received a list of high-priority roads.
Among those listed roads, Rials mentioned, are Cedar Street, Starhill Drive, Sellers and Outer Drives. While one option would be addressing each street at a time, the city seeks to address areas in which multiple roads can be repaired all at one time.
“You are not going to propose that a company go pave one road on this part of the city and then one road on the other part of the city,” Rials said. “Let’s pull in the other core roads in the same area.”
During this week’s Executive Committee meeting, the council unanimously approved to proceed with two groups of roads as part of a road-paving priority plan.
The first group of roads includes Cedar, Cypress, Hickory, Lee, Orange and Pecan Streets, which are in a residential area just north of the Guy Thompson Community Center, between Dogwood Drive and Byrom Street.
The second group of streets includes Starhill, Andromeda and Polaris Drives.
There is no time frame for when these projects will start, City Manager Brian Watkins said. But one thing is certain: The road work will not begin until enough funding from the gas tax revenue is provided.
“As we collect those monies, we will put them aside for road paving,” Watkins said. “When we get enough money to do these sections, we will start turning them over to the contractor.”
Also undetermined is the exact amount of money needed to complete a group of streets. Although the city does have estimates, those could change within a span of a couple of years, depending on rate of deterioration.
Watkins anticipates the work would be completed by Panhandle Grading and Paving Inc., which is the same company that provides the same road work services for the county.
Watkins said the city annually could receive between $180,000 and $200,000 from the gas tax revenue. A check from last month’s gas tax proceeds was just less than $20,000, he said.
With the council’s approval this week, which will be finalized during Tuesday night’s regular council meeting as part of the consent agenda, Watkins said city staff is expected to inspect the group one area to see if any additional improvements are needed.
Alabama and Dixon Streets last year received major improvements when the council voted to spend $250,000 to repair and repave the roadways.
Improved roadways, according to Watkins, remain a top concern when it comes to citizen input.
“Come election time, when the council goes out to (speak with citizens), at the top of their lists of things that are needed to be done is paved roads,” Watkins said.
The 6 cents to 12 cents increase took place on Jan. 1 following a vote from county commissioners, with the intent to increase revenue for transportation and road projects.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: City plans to use gas tax for road work