WACO, Texas — The Better Streets Waco program is an ongoing effort to improve the condition of city streets, including some of the oldest in the downtown area and this year they're hoping to treat 10.6 million square feet.
"Our goal is to have all of the streets in a good driving condition and obviously we're not there and we won't be there for a long time," Amy Burlarley-Hyland said, the city's director of public works.
The Better Streets Waco program began a few years ago. Burlarley-Hyland said they took a survey to see the condition of the pavement of streets and using those ratings from the survey, they developed a scheme of which roads they should do and in which order. Currently, they're ramping up for their third summer of construction.
"Some of the projects that we let last fall and winter are under construction now so for example, Washington Ave., 5th Street. and then we're getting into the preservation projects which are generally more in the subdivision areas where we are just putting a seal coat on the roads to keep them in good condition for as long as possible," Burlarley-Hyland said.
The city has put together a long list of streets that need work and Burlarley-Hyland said they've still got a long way to go.
"It's kind of like your house right, as soon as you finish renovating everything in your house it's time to start all over again," Burlarley-Hyland said. "So we're never really finished, but we hope that through this program we keep increasing the overall score and bring our score up to a higher level so that it would cost less money to keep things good then it does to fix them when they're broken."
They've also created an interactive map so the community can stay up to date on projects. There you can see what's planned, the current construction projects, and what's already been completed.
"Even though we're going through the painful times right now it will be better in the long run, and once we get all of the roads reconstructed then we won't be bothering people except for doing things like re striping or maybe doing a thin overlay," Burlarley-Hyland said. "So there won't be the disruptions that we're experiencing right now."
For more information on the Better Streets Waco program, click here.
To visit the interactive map, click here.