47°
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
7 Day Forecast
Follow our weather team on social media

Homeowner tired of patchwork on street, wants permanent fix

7 years 2 months 3 days ago Tuesday, January 24 2017 Jan 24, 2017 January 24, 2017 4:55 PM January 24, 2017 in News
Source: WBRZ

BATON ROUGE - A homeowner says her street is full of holes and patches. She's been searching for a permanent fix to smooth out the drive.

Josephine Washington has lived on Shelley Street for 36 years. After calling on the City-Parish too many times to count, she called 2 On Your Side to help find a solution.

"Nothing you can do, they just come out here and they just patch it," she said.

Washington says she's been making calls to the city's 311 call center for years. Her first memory of calling for help was in 2008. Over time, traffic from 18-wheelers and fire trucks has worn down the road. There are holes from one end of the street to the other and the latest issues are a grouping of pot holes.

"This is about the fifth time that they have put rocks in this hole here that is not doing any good," she said.

A couple of weeks ago the City-Parish's Director of Maintenance Jay Ruffin says a crew provided a temporary fix, filling in the holes with rocks. Washington says a short time later, the holes reopened and frequent drivers avoid them, driving on the wrong side of the road.

She's losing hope her road will ever be back to the pristine condition it once was.

"I want the street completed," said Washington. "I want the whole street straightened out and did the way it should be."

The City-Parish says a portion of Shelley Street was repaved in 2016, but it says a vendor sold substandard asphalt, causing the road to degrade faster.

"What they're doing now, is they're just throwing away taxpayers' money," said Washington.

The Department of Maintenance says a municipal center nearby, used as a disaster center in the last few months, caused some recent wear and tear from truck traffic.

There are about 1,800 miles of road in East Baton Rouge Parish that the City-Parish is responsible for. The Transportation and Drainage Department determines whether a road rehab project is warranted and it's put on a list. It can take about a year before a project on the list to be completed.

The City-Parish says the order of project completion is based on the hazard level, safety and when the complaint was received.

Ruffin tells 2 On Your Side the pot holes on Shelley Street will be repaired in the next two weeks.


More News

Desktop News

Click to open Continuous News in a sidebar that updates in real-time.
Radar
7 Days