Just in time for winter, St. Paul city officials have agreed on a plan to strip and repave 11 of Mayor Chris Coleman's "Terrible 20" arterial streets in critical need of repair.
On Wednesday, the City Council approved Coleman's proposal to spend $2.5 million this summer to improve the roads, which include some of the city's most highly-traveled – Cretin, Fairview, Grand and Hamline avenues, among others.
The work should be done by November.
Coleman thanked the council. "We do not want to repeat the winter and spring we had this past year," he said, in a statement released Wednesday. "No one wants another polar vortex and everyone wants the roads to be better in St. Paul."
The plan will use $1 million transferred from closed-out projects and areas such as street sweeping, along with $1.5 million already authorized for the work.
It wasn't the council's first choice on how to address growing problems with the washboard-like streets, which many people have been blaming for flat tires and out-of-whack suspensions.
Last month, six council members united around a plan to spend $22 million in bonding proceeds to start rebuilding the streets, rather than simply repairing them. The streets required more than just a short-term fix, they said.
But Coleman maintains that reconstructing all arterial streets will cost about $20 million a year for the next 10 years. His plan to spend $2.5 million now on repairs will buy the city some time until a long-term solution can be found – something he plans to offer in next month's budget address.
