Photo: Mayor de Blasio last week thanked road crews for repairing potholes. Hizzoner said he has invested nearly $250 million in maintaining city roadways. Courtesy of Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.
After a brutal winter that is still taking its toll on city drivers in the form of potholes, the de Blasio administration has announced that it has committed an additional $242 million to road repaving during the next two fiscal years.
Mayor Bill de Blasio and city Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg last week announced an accelerated and expanded resurfacing program that will improve road conditions in every borough.
The funding will help repave more than 1,200 lane-miles of roadway from July 2015 through June 2016—more than any year since 1991—and 1,300 lane-miles in Fiscal Year 2017.
“This is money well spent,” de Blasio said. “These especially cold winters have been hard on New York City’s streets, and we need to invest big to get them back in good repair. The commitment we’re making is the biggest in 25 years, and it’s something every New Yorker who walks, drives or bikes will see and feel firsthand.”
DOT, Trottenberg said, is close to reaching its targeted 1,000 lane-miles resurfaced in the current fiscal year, and has repaired over 327,000 potholes since mid-December.
Every borough will see additional miles of roadway repaved this year, de Blasio said, with new thoroughfares added to the roster thanks to the new funding, including the FDR in Manhattan, Kings Highway in Brooklyn, Hillside Avenue in Queens, Clove Road on Staten Island, and Westchester Avenue in the Bronx.
“With this funding, the men and women of the DOT will be resurfacing more streets than we have in over twenty years and they are up for the task,” Trottenberg said.
The new funding will increase the percentage of roadways in a state of good repair to nearly 80 percent from the current 71 percent—the highest such rating since 1999. De Blasio noted that the repairs also help to further the Vision Zero initiative.
“This accelerated and expanded road resurfacing program is great news for drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians in Queens and throughout the city,” said Queens Borough President Melinda Katz. “Mother Nature may have been rough on us this winter, but this additional $242 million in funding for road repaving shows the city is willing to make the smart investments that our roadways need.”
According to the administration, the 1,200 lane-mile commitment represents a 20 percent increase from projections earlier this year. The new funding is expected to enable DOT to reach 1,300 miles in FY2017.
