Following a barrage of public complaints, St. Paul officials say they will repave crumbling, pothole-laden Ayd Mill Road this season — a project that was not slated for another two years.
“The ongoing efforts to regularly patch and maintain the road are expensive and are no longer sufficient or sustainable. We cannot wait until 2021 to undertake this project,” Public Works director Kathy Lantry said in a written statement Tuesday.
The road carries 24,000 vehicles per day, and has been maintained in recent years with hot patch.
But following the winter thaw, residents complained vociferously on social media that its disrepair transformed it into a driving hazard.
The announcement for the $3.5 million project came after city officials already had released their list of road projects for 2019.
The total budget for the old “mill and overlay” list was $2.7 million — meaning the Ayd Mill project alone will surpass it.
Additionally, the city is spending $3.5 million to repave parts of downtown this year as part of a special, separately-funded project.
“Mill and overlay” means grinding off the top two inches of a street’s asphalt (that’s the “mill” part), and then replacing (overlaying) it with a fresh two inches of pavement.
Money for the Ayd Mill project will come from a now-defunct $6 million plan to reconstruct neighborhood streets surrounding Woodlawn and Jefferson Avenues — a project that was nixed after area residents objected in force.
The 1.5 mile strip of Ayd Mill has little private property frontage, meaning the city cannot rely on assessments to repave it: a mechanism that usually covers half the cost.
“It’s one of the costliest streets to maintain in St. Paul, and one with the heaviest traffic,” said Public Works spokeswoman Lisa Hiebert.
The exact timing of the overlay has not been determined, though the construction season typically wraps up by October.
