CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The city of Corpus Christi working to speed up a long-time problem -- its aging and decrepit residential streets.
For some, it’s been a decades-long process.
Victor Garcia lives on a recently repaved street.
"It's good,” he said. “I look. I see that it's good. It needed work. Of course, it needed work. They did it quick. They did it quick, because I saw the one they first got. They took a long time with that one, but it was raining and stuff."
Garcia has lived on Vestal Street all his life. He's happy with the repaving the city just completed.
But while some complained about driveways and curbing, the city says they'll be back to do that.
"After we did our PCI scoring for all the roadways, we had something like 370 miles of residential streets that needed work immediately,” said city of Corpus Christi Ernesto de la Garza. “And if we were focusing on curb and gutter and sidewalk, we were chipping away at that mileage at about 6 miles a year."
While 6 miles may not seem like much, the average residential street can be as short as 1,500 ft.
"With this program we can hopefully get that number up to 40 miles per year," de la Garza said.
This section of Flynn parkway is on the to-do list for the coming year.
Council last week approved a contract, valued at $13,452,000, which could potentially double to $26,904,000 if the agreement is renewed.
De la Garza says speed is the key.
“Some of the fastest jobs that we've done have been around, within a two-week time frame to go in there and fix a road structurally as well as the surface,” he said. “And getting out per neighborhood street. So that's why we call it the rapid pavement program."
Residents like Pablo Bazan say it's about time.
"I think they did pretty good,” he said. “They did it better than last time. I'm glad they put the speed bumps back up, too, because people go real fast through here."