CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The City of Corpus Christi is looking at a new way to fix residential streets that are deemed to be in poor condition.
That 5 year plan with a list of streets to be targeted will go in front of city council next week for approval.
Corpus Christi Public Works Director Ernesto De La Garza said that residents can expect to see a lot of work crews chipping away at fixing streets in our neighborhood this summer.
"Trying to get rid of potholes, base repairs and giving our city a lot of smooth roads," he said.
De La Garza told 3NEWS that he will be representing the infrastructure management plan to city council members next week, which is slated to last for 5 years.
"They're thinner sections, but every week we have trash trucks going out there, delivery trucks are going out there and putting load on those structures and so they do have the most wear and tear," he said.
De La Garza said that the plan is thanks to a 2021 contract with Roadway Asset Services that brought in a specialized van with various equipment to really determine the worst of the worst streets in the city. Measuring over 1,200 center line miles of roadway from Calallen to Padre Island.
"As you can imagine a network of streets in the city trying to say which is going or get the work first," he said. "This is the data that we use to prioritize come up with a very transparent approach that is not only fair but consistent and that's the data we use to come up with the plan."
Streets were ranked from 100, being a new road, to zero being a very bad road. 453 center line miles of roads are in need of complete reconstruction.
In 2019, that number was 583. To tackle the job, De La Garza said Public Works is changing their strategy.
"That program used to be full blown reconstruction from the utilities all the way to the surface that one is we are now only going to focus on the street only," he said.
He said work will be five times faster and they'll last 10-30 years longer.
A pilot program allowed crews to finish a cluster of eight streets all within a month. One of them was located at Austin Street. The street's renovation even caught the eye of a family who was out for an evening walk.
"They were pretty bump, they were definitely a lot of pot holes in some places it looked like tire tracks were dug into the pavement," said Nicole Giordano, who lived in the neighborhood and remembers how bad the street was.
"We plan not to close entire streets with this new approach we can use hot mix the ability to go in and day out we're not going to have to close the street entirely, we can do it in a week," he said.
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