BERLIN – A comprehensive report released this week calls for improvements to close to two dozen Berlin streets within the next five years.
The roadway report, presented to the Berlin Town Council Monday by Josh Taylor of Davis Bowen & Friedel, ranks the town’s streets by their condition. While close to half of Berlin’s streets are in good shape—ranking as “good” or “excellent”—half qualified as “poor” or “fair.” Taylor says those roads should be the first to be addressed.
“This evaluation is meant to be an instrument, a tool, for you to systematically approach roadway repairs,” Taylor said.
Taylor said Davis Bowen & Friedel inspected the town’s entire roadway system—18 miles of roads—last summer. Most of the roads were re-inspected in January, following what was called a harsh winter. The report identifies the 10 roads in the worst condition as Baker Street, Bottle Branch Road, Grace Street, Harrison Avenue, Showell Street, Stevenson Lane, Tingle Road, West Branch Street, the northern section of Decatur Street and the section of Flower Street near Henry Park. The report notes, however, that Baker Street was evaluated before the recent improvements began.
The report suggests that roads marked as “poor,” 22 in all, should be addressed within the next five years. Those marked as “fair” should be addressed within the next 10 years.
Taylor said that though roughly half the town’s streets needed improvements in the near future, that was not unusual for a small town.
“Those are very good numbers,” he said.
Taylor said that now that the town had the roadway evaluation on file, the 50-page document could be tweaked and reviewed in the future.
“This gives us a roadmap, no pun intended, as to where do we go from here,” Mayor Gee Williams said.
He said he’d like the town to get to the point where 80 percent of its roads were in good condition.
“This is going to be very helpful,” he said.
Town Administrator Laura Allen said it would take $1.2 million to improve all roads currently considered to be in “poor” condition. She said the town typically spent $100,000 to $200,000 a year on roadwork.
“There’s a challenge there in terms of getting through that layer of asphalt that needs to be repaired,” she said.
Allen added that the town should consider the timing of roadwork to coincide with changes in development so that developers could be asked to contribute to improvement costs.
“The town should be mindful of making the most of those opportunities,” she said.
The council voted unanimously to accept the roadway report.
