Mayor Explains Road Selection at Today's Issue 1 News Conference

Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz today explained how the city would select roads to be resurfaced versus roads that would be reconstructed with passage of Issue 1, during a news conference at Crestline Paving & Excavating.

Nearly 60 percent of the funding for roads the city plans to fix through the end of 2021, with passage of Issue 1, will be spent on reconstructing roads, which gives them a much longer lifespan, Mayor Kapszukiewicz said. The full list of roads that will be reconstructed or resurfaced through the end of 2021 is posted at https://toledo.oh.gov/residents/neighborhoods/transportation-traffic/road-construction.

Issue 1 is a 10-year plan and there will be eight more years of resurfacing and reconstruction funded with the new levy, the mayor said.

“We are putting a focus on fixing the worst roads, which is something the city has avoided in the past because of the exorbitant cost,” the mayor said. “The city for many years in the past has used Band-Aids, and applied top layers of asphalt on our roads, rather than doing the proper reconstruction where needed. Because of that, many roads are now in such terrible shape. With Issue 1, we will have the funding to complete full reconstructions of roads that the city has avoided fixing because of the triage mentality the city government has had to use for many years.”