City Council greenlights widening Alsbury, updates plans to improve major roads
Council unanimously approves $2.7 million project widening Alsbury from Hulen to Candler and directs staff to pull $700,000 from program budget to repair Hidden Creek, Renfro and Alsbury
BURLESON – The Burleson City Council approved a project to widen Alsbury Boulevard and directed city staff to update the street asset-management program to repair Hidden Creek Parkway, Renfro Street and Alsbury sooner than initially planned Monday at City Hall.
The council unanimously approved the $2.7 million project to widen Alsbury from Hulen Street to Candler Drive and directed city staff to pull $700,000 from the $2.3 million budget for year-one of the street asset-management program to focus on fixing multiple locations along Hidden Creek, Renfro and Alsbury.
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The Alsbury-widening project will include constructing outside lanes, a 10-foot shared-use path, modifying the railroad crossing on that road segment and undergrounding electrical lines at the north side of the project.
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The project will begin by January and is estimated to complete by October.
The section of Alsbury being widened will be shut down once construction begins on the railroad crossing, deputy city manager Eric Oscarson said at the meeting. He also said the plan is to mitigate disruptions as much as possible in response to Mayor Pro Tem Dan McClendon expressing concern about Alsbury becoming a one-way road during construction.
McClendon said he’d like to see “plenty of advanced warnings” of the impact the construction could have on people.
The council’s direction to modify the street asset-management program’s year-one budget came after assistant to the city manager Janalea Hembree and deputy public works director Justin Scharnhorst presented an update on the program.
The initial plan for year-one with the system included no updates for those roads but did include updates to several other residential roads because, Hembree said, the software focuses on spending money on fixing the largest amount of roads and fixing roads in worse shape is more expensive and would technically lead to fewer fixes.
“Unless council has an argument that can change my mind, I think getting those arterial roads fixed should be a priority,” councilmember Larry Scott said of Hidden Creek, Renfro and Alsbury.
Councilmember Adam Russell agreed, saying he thinks “it's important to take care of what our constituents are wanting and I don’t blame them because coming down Hidden Creek is pretty bad.”
The council’s direction to pull the $700,000 from the year-one budget went against city staff’s recommendation, which was to proceed without repairing those roads in year-one.
City manager Tommy Ludwig said the staff’s recommendation comes from the staff trying to make data-driven decisions but he thinks spending the $700,000 to repair those roads isn’t a bad way to spend the money.
“It's stuff that you guys hear everyday and [Hidden Creek, Renfro and Alsbury] are streets that are primary arterials for the city,” Ludwig said.
Do you agree with City Council’s decision to direct staff to prioritize repairing these major roadways over repairing roadways that may require more repairs?
The public works department is driving out to see where work actually needs to be done on the roads, Scharnhorst said. His presentation included an example of the department determining that approximately 80 feet of Pinnacle Drive needed repaired when the system recommended 685 feet be repaired.
City council will meet again Thursday in a special meeting to approve election results.
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