The city of Edinburg began a street repaving effort Friday, April 8, 2022, which will address as many as 50 roads in town. (Courtesy Photo)
EDINBURG — Several streets around the city will soon receive long-awaited upgrades as the city has embarked on a series of street paving projects for roads in residential areas.
Over a 12-month period, the city will repave 50 streets that were identified to be in need of work based on resident feedback, the amount of damage, and the volume of traffic on that street.
“Part of the reason we’re here today is we have kicked off $3 million of street maintenance improvements throughout the city,” Mayor Ramiro Garza Jr. said, speaking to media beside Baker Street near Closner Boulevard, which was already being repaved Friday.
“This right here,” Garza said referring to Baker Street, “is one of the key ones that is about to be completed. So it’s been kicked off and we just want to communicate to our residents all these improvements that are happening.”
The street projects will focus on streets in residential areas and are in addition to improvements already being done to major thoroughfares such as Alberta Road and Schunior Street.
The work on the 50 streets, which Garza refers to as the residential street improvement program, has a budget of $3 million from the city’s capital improvements fund. The city council adopted the schedule of streets that would be repaved during a city council meeting on March 15.
City staff worked on identifying which streets would be worked on based on requests from residents and where they see the most traffic, Garza said.
They then did an assessment of all the conditions of the streets and compiled a list of those that need the most improvements with a score assigned to each of the roads.
“So that’s how we come up with all the streets and we make sure that it’s throughout the city,” Garza said.
With the recent town hall meetings and a city survey that were held to solicit feedback from residents, Garza said he wants residents to know that city officials are listening.
“We are hearing you and we’re going to continue to hear your requests and do everything that we can to make improvements to our city,” the mayor said.
He said the city intends to keep the projects ongoing and encouraged residents to keep reporting streets that required maintenance through the city’s 311 service, which is accessible on their website or via the Edinburg 311 app.
As the city works on the streets, Garza asked residents to be patient with city crews and the people working on the projects. While the length of each project will vary by street, Garza said they don’t expect to close off streets completely unless it is absolutely necessary.
City Council member Dan Diaz said it was satisfying to see these types of projects come to fruition.
“It’s really a dream come true because when you’re campaigning, everyone has wants and desires, you really don’t know how the process works, you have what I have always called the dream sheet of what you’d like to see for the city,” said Diaz, who was newly elected to the council in November, “so to actually be in office and have the backup of the city and the employees and the assistant city managers and the director — where they are actually on board with our mission, on board with our goals — it’s just so gratifying to see it play through and actually happen, go from inception to reality.”
