Mission possible: Use creative strategies to fix mangled roads
At long last, spring has sprung on the Mahoning Valley after Old Man Winter walloped and whacked the region with history-setting cold and near-history setting snowfall. But as we rejoice in the comfort of the first full week of the season of renewal, the battle scars of this year’s wintry fury remain painfully evident on hundreds of battered, mangled and pockmarked roads.
As Mahoning County Engineer Patrick Ginnetti put it, “The roads have blown up this year,” adding “this is the worst I’ve seen our roads.”
Making matters worse are skyrocketing patching costs, plummeting local tax receipts and sizeable losses in state aid. So what’s a community to do?
The answer, as it is with so many other cash-strapped public-sector services these days, is simple: Get creative. Fortunately for all dizzied and discombobulated motorists dodging lunar-sized street craters, some are doing just that. Consider:
In Mahoning County, a rotating crew of four day-reporting jail inmates last week began a three-month stint to help engineer office workers fill the deepest and dankest potholes along Mahoning County’s 485-mile network of roadways. Ginnetti and Sheriff Jerry Greene should consider expanding the number of such crews to save more roads and more taxpayer dollars.
UNION VOLUNTEERISM
In Trumbull County, members of Laborers Local 935 began last week repairing as many problem potholes in Warren as possible. Union members are using their expertise without pay in conjunction with the city street department. That stellar commitment to volunteerism and public service should be emulated by other qualified unions and groups in the Valley.
Local communities, such as Austintown, Boardman and Canfield, have joined forces to create economies of scale to increase road improvements while decreasing total costs. Those three Youngstown suburbs consolidated their paving budgets into one super pot of cash from which substantially more road surfaces could be repaired and resurfaced.
These and other creative-financing initiatives can go a long way toward easing the pain and angst of drivers while enhancing the image and respect of local governments and labor unions. As a result, such innovative and public-spirited road-repair drives should advance full speed ahead.