PORT TOWNSEND — The city of Port Townsend hopes to spend more than a million dollars a year for the next 30 years on street repairs, and it established priorities this week to preserve roads before they begin to fail.
Public Works Director Steve King presented those priorities to the city council Monday night, offering suggestions on how to allocate funds from the recently approved Transportation Benefit District (TBD).
King said the city should address problem areas, distribute projects fairly between geographies, solve drainage issues and support future development, all while maintaining financial stability alongside other slated street projects.
Those criteria are to be used as guides on conversations about which street projects to present for 2025 budget inclusion, King said.
“The city, basically since around the early 2000s, had not been maintaining streets,” King said.
“When I say maintaining streets, I’ll call that proactively maintaining streets. They were still doing the day-to-day stuff, a pothole here and there, mitigation and stormwater.”
Those years of relative inactivity were a result of a loss of state funding, he added.
“Initiatives in the late ’90s and early 2000s and some legislative actions cut funding to local governments for street repair,” King said. “At that point, most cities across the state pretty much cut maintenance practices to their streets.”
A city document shows Port Townsend has about 81 miles of streets to maintain. King’s presentation showed an expectation of 40 percent to 60 percent of monies going to repair, rehab and preservation of streets, 40 percent to 60 percent going to match grants for projects in the transportation improvement plan, and 10 percent to 20 percent for sidewalks, ADA and neighborhood traffic calming.
The budget is scheduled to be presented alongside other city budgets sometime in late October or early November, King said.
In the comprehensive streets plan, city staff recommended that the city should be working on $1.5 million in streets projects over 30 years to fully catch up on needed projects, King said.
“Ideally, we’d have more than $1.5 (million). $1.5 was landed on based on a reasonable period of time to rebuild our streets,” King said. “That’s with literally about 30 years of work to try to get our streets back in order, which doesn’t sound reasonable, but on the other hand, the way were were going, we were going backwards.
“We’re not going backwards, but it’s going to be a slow process, and every bit of revenue that we can get is gonna help make that process go faster.”
The 10-year TBD passed with 78 percent of voter support last November and added a 0.3 percent sales tax on purchases made within the city to be used for transportation and street projects. The city began collecting funds this past April. Anywhere from $400,000 to $600,000 in TBD money is expected for streets in the first year.
Although there initially was a TBD board, the members were all city council members, and the council has since taken over responsibility, with topics being covered during normally scheduled meetings.
This year’s funding will go toward repairs on Tyler Street, Lawrence Street where there are ADA needs, and trip hazards on a broken-up sidewalk, King said. Additionally, the money has been budgeted toward hot-spot repairs on Jefferson Street, Cook Avenue and Sheridan Street.
The bump in funding provided by the TBD is expected to generate approximately $800,000 annually for street projects on a full year of collection, King said. An additional $300,000 in funding for streets will be provided from the city’s general fund, King said, bringing total project funds to $1.1 million.
“I’m thrilled to be a part of it and hope to make good use of the limited dollars we have,” King said. “We’re pretty excited about it.”
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@sequimgazette.com.
