Just over $2 million of that funding comes from the Neighborhood Street Paving Program with tax dollars funded through levies approved by city residents in 2017 and 2021.
Additional local dollars will also cover more projects while the balance of money for repaving, repair and reconstruction projects in the year ahead will be funded by the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) and Ohio Public Works Commission (OPWC).
Springfield City Services Director Chris Moore has identified the following streets for 2025 repair work:
* Villa Road, from Middle Urbana Road to Derr Road.
* Bechtle Avenue from the railroad tracks to West First Street.
* South Limestone from Singer Street to Leffel Lane.
Moore indicated 80% of the funding for the work on Villa and Bechtle will be provided by ODOT, and 20% will be comprised of local funds.
The South Limestone work is funded primarily with ODOT, while local and OPWC funds will be used to supplement the cost, Moore said.
Credit: Bill Lackey
Credit: Bill Lackey
The remaining streets in the list are all locally funded as part of the tax levies authorized by residents and include the following 14 streets in the Layne Addition west of Burnett Road and south of Lexington Avenue — Irwin, Willow, Cape Cod, Doris, Reading, Delwood, Leland, Eastmoor, Mayfair, Windsor, South Arlington (Lexington to Sheridan), South Douglas (Lexington to Sheridan), Cortland and Feese.
Moore coordinates planned street repairs with utility service providers to ensure utility repairs are completed ahead of street repairs to avoid having to repair streets twice. Moore said “some minor utility coordination still has to take place” but he does not foresee any obstacles to pose a barrier to planned repairs.
Resident dissatisfaction with city streets did not come as a surprise to city officials. City Manager Bryan Heck has acknowledged that “there was a nine-year hiatus where the city did not have the finances to pave our neighborhood streets, so we certainly got behind and we recognize that.”
According to Heck, over 100 streets in the city have been repaved since passage of the tax levy in 2017 and the city has invested $2 million or more every year to catch up on needed street repaving, reconstruction and repair.
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