10 Lakewood Streets Slated For Repaving

There are about a dozen streets that rank among the worst of the worst in Lakewood.

Bumpy. Potholes. Crumbling.

At least 10 of them are slated for some new pavement this summer.

They are: Atkins, Brockley, Hird, Lauderdale, McKinley, Northland, St. Charles, Wyandotte avenues, as well as Lakeland and Waterbury roads.

An ordinance was introduced at Monday’s city council meeting that would cap the cost of repaving projects at $1.4 million.

Should the bids come in lower than expected, city officials would consider additional streets for repaving, said Lakewood Mayor Michael Summers.

“These streets are in tough shape,” he said. 

A map in the mayor’s office serves as a blueprint for a strategy to address the worst streets first.

The streets marked in orange and yellow note the some of the streets that need the most attention.

“(The streets proposed in the project) are all on the pavement ranking systems — oranges to yellows — the worst streets in Lakewood right now,” he said. “This group will pretty much eliminate, with only a few exceptions, our worst streets. Now we’ve got to circle back and get the ones that are heading that way in years to come.”

There's also another project on the horizon.

Last year, the city applied for — and was denied — $1 million in state funding for a $2 million project to repave all three miles of Madison Avenue.

That street is marked in red — the very worst — on the mayor's pavement ranking system.

City officials applied for the federal grant again this year.

Joe Beno, the city’s director of public works, recently told Lakewood Patch that it’s been about 20 years since Madison Avenue was fully repaved.

However, it gets the regular patch treatment.

“It’s not the worst street, but it’s one of the worst,” Beno said.

An application for $250,000 in grant funding from Cuyahoga County was approved by Lakewood City Council last year — but that money would only be used if the city gets the green light from the state.

“If we don’t get the money from the Ohio Department of Public Works Commission, the city is not going to spend $2 million of its own money to repave Madison,” Beno said. 

The city is still waiting on word for that project.

Meanwhile, the proposed ordinance for the 10-street repaving plan was sent to city council’s finance committee for further review.