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San Leandro Road Quality Low & Worsening

A Metropolitan Transportation Committee report finds city streets among the worst in the Bay Area. Which local streets are most in need of repair?

 

This probably comes as no surprise to drivers.

The streets of San Leandro ranked among the worst in the Bay Area in a report by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission that evaluated local road conditions in 109 communities. 

The MTC's Pavement Condition Index, or PCI, considers a score above 80 good.

An MTC press release says the Bay Area has 42,600 miles of local streets and roads with an overall PCI of 66. 

San Leandro's 392 miles of local roads had a PCI of 56 in 2011. That is down from 62 in 2006.

That earned San Leandro a ranking of 99th out of 109.

San Leandro's PCI rating is comparable to that of Oakland.

Hayward has a PCI of 69, above the Bay Area average.

City leaders are aware of worsening local road conditions.

In a budget workshop in February, City Manager Chris Zapata said San Leandro had 1,100 potholes in fiscal year 2007.

In 2011 it had 2,507 potholes. He said the city is not spending enough to keep up with wear and tear.

City engineering staff presented more details in a recent presentation that can be visited by clicking on this link and downloading the PDF file.

The brief takeaway is that the defeat of county sales tax Measure B1 -- which was announced Monday -- means San Leandro will not get additional funds to bring its roads up to par. 

"Under current funding, pavement conditions will continue to decline," says the summary slide, adding that "as pavement work is deferred, the type of repair becomes more intrusive to residents and substantially more expensive."

If the city is to spend more on road upkeep where should the money come from? Which streets are most in need of repair? Leave a comment. Upload a picture. Or text your image to the editor at 510-332-9308.

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Stephen Cassidy November 20, 2012 at 11:41 am
San Leandro receives about $1.7 million annually from the Alameda County Transportation Commission. The bulk of these funds, $1.1 million, go to repairing our roads with smaller sums for paratransit for seniors and people with disabilities and bicycle and pedestrian safety. This is not a sufficient sum of monies to address the maintenance needs of our street and roads.
Measure B1 on the November ballot received overwhelming support - 66.53% yes vote. Under the measure, San Leandro would have received $3.1 million annually, of which $2.2 million would go to fixing our roads. On top of that the expenditure plan allocated $30 million for road repair in San Leandro. In just a few years, Measure B1 would have transformed the quality of our roads. Unfortunately, as it stands now, Measure B1 did not pass because under our state constitution we have enshrined the tyranny of the minority. Any tax that is dedicated for a specific purposes - such funds for school operating costs or in the case of B1 funds for transportation needs - must receive a 66.67% yes vote. Where should we go now? I'm interested in the comments and feedback from the community. Please post your comments below. We are going to need a some type of revenue measure to repair our roads. Berkeley passed a bond measure in November to pay for fixing its roads. That is one option we should consider.
Robo Eng November 20, 2012 at 12:11 pm
Why are other cities in such better shape than SL? As in so many issues, it's not how much money one has, it's how well/wisely it's spent. Twenty years in SL and there's always a reason that streets aren't in good repair.
It would be helpful if the city...in its effort to be transparent...posted its street repair/repaving plan on line. That would be so much easier than svaing the occasional (annual?) SL Times article. If the failure of Measure B means San Leandro will not get additional funds to bring its roads up to par, then I guess other cities will suffer the same challenge. Will be curious to see how well those cities manage their resources and maintain/repair their streets.
Larry Smith November 20, 2012 at 12:36 pm
San Leandro's problem with streets stems more from permitting contractors to perform shoddy work and getting away with it. In years past, I had complained of poor slurry sealing of our streets. The only response was that the company that performed the work used a bad mix of product. Nothing happened! The city didn't require them to come back out and correct their shoddy work, they were allowed to keep bidding on city street work, and our streets fell into even greater disrepair. And now the problem is so bad, it begs the question: Which Third World Bay Area city are you driving in? Most countries with as bad as roads as we have in San Leandro at least have a war going on to explain the poor condition of their roads. Their potholes were created by misslie strikes and explosive devices. What's the excuse for San Leandro, Mr. Cassidy?
David November 20, 2012 at 12:38 pm
Where should we go?
If you can't find any savings in the City Budget... We should look to a measure that devotes 100% of the funding to roads. With 100% of the funding going to roads, the taxes raised would be 30% of Measure B1, and much easier to stomach. Measure B1 would have put only 39% of the taxes raised to actual roads, and only 30% to local roads. The rest would have been wasted on AC Transit, which already benefits from a massive parcel tax passed last year, and BART to Livermore, which is neither desired by residents in Livermore, nor would it relieve congestion even with the rosiest of projections by BART. Mayor Cassidy, this should be an obvious solution, and easier to market--a tax that's 70% lower than Measure B1 and would solely go to local road repair.
Larry Smith November 20, 2012 at 12:39 pm
And I don't mean to single out the mayor because he certainly didn't create this mess!
Vernon S. Burton November 20, 2012 at 12:40 pm
Issue after issue ,all you get is the dumb repartee ,mostly for the low information ,know nothings who hate to pay for what the comunity needs. It is called infrasrutucure maintainance, and you pay for it one way or another. Fix the streets or fix you car ,it's your choice.
David November 20, 2012 at 12:42 pm
Yes, yes, Vernon, it's stupid to note that a "road measure" like B1 was sold as, was really 61% devoted to ...things that aren't roads.
Fran November 20, 2012 at 01:55 pm
So true Larry. They do a half-ass job at best, not to mention the mess they leave behind. Our roads wouldn't be half as bad if they were done right to begin with. But then they wouldn't have to do it as often. Makes you wonder.
Tom Abate (Editor) November 20, 2012 at 03:08 pm
A good question was asked above: why are San Leandro roads inferior to, say, those in Hayward? It is also an industrial and warehouse city, which implies lots of truck traffic that must pound the pavement. But Hayward is above county average for road conditions and San Leandro is below.
Joe November 20, 2012 at 07:29 pm
@Cassidy - fix this. If it's not the biggest bang for the buck, get a peon on it.
anthony November 20, 2012 at 10:15 pm
Another question is how does the MTC generate their data, and is there potential for the gathering agencies to sample for results to match an agenda. Is there an ability, or even an incentive to generate numbers that can be presented as reason for increased funding? If the numbers are based on a 10% sampling of road surface, getting substantially different results from selective sampling isn't too difficult. In addition, if you have enough really poor surface miles it makes the rest appear weak when the PCI is only an average.
tony santos November 20, 2012 at 10:31 pm
check the roads out in Oakland-go to fruitvale, san leandro street, high street, excelsior and other areas, including macarthur-all worse than ours-then drive along mission blvd, outside san leandro into hayward, no better than ours. OB Badger made road repair his primary platform ini 2006 and sorry to say, there has been only minor improvements-one thing city could do is to take money programmed for hospsital and spend it repairing our streets-especially Park and San Leandro blvd.instead of spending $3 million on something which is none of our business, spend it on street repair-lastly, cities, including SaN Leandro relied too much on Measure B1 and as it failed, cities find themselves still strapped-
tony santos November 20, 2012 at 10:31 pm
PS: I will take my share of blame-will other leaders in town do the same??
Thomas Clarke November 21, 2012 at 12:11 am
The reality is that the City of San Leandro cares more about the hospital than the roads. It is that simple. Three million will go a long way.
Fred Eiger November 21, 2012 at 02:02 am
And you Vernon want others to pay, but not yourself.
Fred Eiger November 21, 2012 at 02:03 am
The roads are bad because all the money goes to salaries and pensions, not to MATERIALS!!!
tony santos November 21, 2012 at 08:43 pm
Three million will go a long way toward what? fact is, ACMC will need $12 million a year to operate hospital with a full fledged ER-over three years, this totals $36 million dollars-the money is not there-we are talking about roads and not the hospital-again, cities, including ours, have relied on the Feds/State/other sources of revenue to fix and maintain roads-the end is now here and cities may have to find ways to fund street maintenance from its own resources from yours and my pocket-
Rob Rich November 21, 2012 at 10:11 pm
I supported B1, just like most people, but 2/3's is a heavy burden & it fell just short. I'm ready to get behind a local "roads only" measure as "David" proposes. I think it's less than ideal, but it would address a part of our transportation need.
It would be great if "David's" road measure had a Citizens Oversight committee w/Larry Smith on it. I don't know the guy, but he seems to know roads & he cares.
Larry Smith November 22, 2012 at 03:16 am
What is really ironic is that a small burb in the state of Alaska just built a $30 million dollar harbor with federal funds and a $70 million dollar airport also with federal funds. The only problem is that this landlocked town with no roads to it, doesn;t have any airlines or commercial traffic that flies in or out of the airport and they don't have any boats that are using the new harbor. Now you take a state like California that is so damn liberal that hell would have to freeze over before this state would ever be up for grabs in a presidential election and you have a situation like we just encountered: Obama had no offices in California and Romney didn't spend any money either. So we get less federal funds than our population deserves because no one has to deliver on any promises made to secure our votes. Californians are screwing themselves and not even enjoying it. Alaska gets a $30 million dollar harbor they don't even use, while San Leandro can't get any federal funds to dredge our harbor entrance and channel to the bay. Our Congressional representatives are really doing us a lot of good, sure they are.
Rob Rich November 22, 2012 at 04:31 am
It's not "David's" road measure until somebody named "David" tries to make it happen. Threatening to vote for it on the Patch doesn't count.
Fred Eiger November 22, 2012 at 01:13 pm
Larry, that's because the liberals in California view roads as; "evil", "bad", "exclusionary", "contributing to the fairy tale of global warming". Money has to be spent on "human needs"; foods stamps, Section 8 housing, light rail, high speed trains. You know Larry, things that are just plain lazy.
tony santos November 23, 2012 at 07:26 pm
Larry, not true-San Leandro first dredged harbor in the sixties, can't recall first time it was done, but San Leandro funded the initial dredging-then in 1973, San Leandro began receiving fed funding and did so into 2010, but if you read what was stated in the sixties and seventies, city leaders always stated, and I made similar comments, that there could come a time whereby the City could lose fed funding-this is occuring now-it was further stated that if funding were ever lost, the City would need to take the area into a different direction-this too is being done now-bottom line is the City of San Leandro received literally millions of federal dollars to dredge-from fed level is fact it has to share dollars with many different marinas similar to ours-six in bay area alone-no dollars, no dredging-bottom line-
Jim January 1, 2013 at 04:55 pm
Mayor, while I don't live in SL. I do read and I note that in the FY 2010-2011 audit for SL's expenditure of Measure B that the City took in $1,072,119 for Streets and Roads and only spent $213,029. So, if the City spent less than 25% of the funds, why do you need more?
tony santos January 1, 2013 at 06:19 pm
on comment from Jim on fact city not spending enough on road repair-I feel City should immediately spend $5 million dollars on repairing as much of the worst conditioned roads in City as possible-patch those montrous holes around town-if we cannot maintain our city's roads it could lead to more serious problems in the future. If need be, take the money out of reserves-this is no time to save money-not while our roads are in the condition they are-
David January 1, 2013 at 06:32 pm
As I wrote above
Measure B1 would have put only 39% of the taxes raised to actual roads, and only 30% to local roads. The rest would have been wasted on AC Transit, which already benefits from a massive parcel tax passed last year, and BART to Livermore, which is neither desired by residents in Livermore, nor would it relieve congestion even with the rosiest of projections by BART. Not to mention throwing more money at private developers for unnecessary, unneeded and unwanted TOD housing. Mayor Cassidy, this should be an obvious solution, and easier to market--a tax that's 70% lower than Measure B1 and would solely go to local road repair.
Larry Smith January 1, 2013 at 06:35 pm
I guarantee you that the roads in Hayward are no better than they are in San Leandro. Having ridden bikes extensively through both cities, I can assure you that whatever agency made the false claims about Hayward streets being better, had their heads where the sun don't shine...and I am not talking potholes here.
ken February 8, 2013 at 07:08 pm
I vote Martinez Street (west of Bart) as the worst of the worst.
tony santos February 8, 2013 at 08:55 pm
Ken city voted years ago to abandon Martinez-when development moves forward there will not longer be a Martinez-no need to repair it. I just received a long list of streets soon to be resurfaced- Many that should be on list are not-
ken February 8, 2013 at 09:24 pm
Mr. Santos..I had a feeling that Crossroads was the reason that street has become a buckboard trail..K
Note Article
Just a short thought to get the word out quickly about anything in your neighborhood.
Share something with your neighbors. Write a new post... What's up? Make an announcement, speak your mind, or sell something
David June 19, 2013 at 07:44 pm
Rob, *I* provide decent, safe, affordable housing for low income folks. It can be done. Yes, IRead More take Section 8 vouchers. Guess what, they work, and they disperse poverty so you do not end up concentrating poor people into a ghetto. All you're doing is creating ghettos. As for the religious women, surely you understand the difference between charity freely given and taxes confiscated from me at the point of a gun.
David June 19, 2013 at 07:46 pm
As previously mentioned, if there were a "shortage" of affordable housing, rather thanRead More creating a brand new ghetto in the middle of downtown SL, those tax dollars could have gone to buying up blocks of foreclosed houses and fixing them up. But you'd rather build new construction at a higher cost to taxpayers. Wonder why...
Rob Rich June 19, 2013 at 08:00 pm
If there wasn't a demand, people wouldn't be lining up dozens deep for every unit. These will beRead More nice units, well managed. There are folks buying up & rehabbing foreclosed properties. Remember, I sent you a link? As for your distaste for taxes (except perhaps when they fund your splendid education), the Sisters disagree w
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F
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