On the City Council agenda Tuesday night is a request to spend another $87,369 toward the Pioneer Parkway Extension project.

The extension of Pioneer Parkway is a planned, new, major arterial roadway that will support projected development of the area identified for coordinated, beneficial growth management by the City of Peoria, Peoria County, and the Greater Peoria Sanitary District. The proposed roadway extension will begin at the intersection of Allen Road and Pioneer Parkway and continue west to intersect Trigger Road.

The project has been in the planning stages since 2001, and over $2 million has already been spent ($1 million of that came from a federal grant secured by Ray LaHood). The $87,369 is to cover more “bridge, intersection and environmental engineering studies” to complete the Design Report.

While we continue to pursue building a “new, major arterial roadway,” our existing roads continue to deteriorate as they are starved for maintenance funds. According to the City’s website, Peoria has 450 miles of City streets, and “the majority of these streets have a chip sealed surface.” They go on to say Peoria has “approximately 63 miles of asphalt surface, 36 miles of concrete pavement, and 5 miles of brick streets.”

If you do the math on those numbers, that comes out to 346 miles of roads that have a “chip sealed,” also known as “sealcoat,” surface. Yet the City has not done any sealcoating of residential streets or any overlay of arterial streets since 2009. Any road work you’ve seen here lately is for state routes or interstate highways which are not maintained by the City. The reason we haven’t been doing sealcoating or overlays? Budget. The 2010 budget has a big “0” for this maintenance. The 2011 budget has $750,000 in it for “arterial streets overlay,” but still no sealcoating of residential streets. I honestly think they need to start utilizing project management tools.

Keep in mind that sealcoating itself is a cost-saving measure, since it’s cheaper than doing an asphalt overlay of all residential streets and is considered “preventative maintenance.” The Federal Highway Administration finds that $1 of preventative maintenance when roads are in good to fair condition “will cost $4.00 to $5.00 or more for rehabilitation … to get the same pavement condition from [preventative maintenance]” when roads are in poor to failing condition.

In 2007, the City sealcoated 65 miles of streets. In 2008, they sealcoated 66 miles. And in 2009, 59 miles. That’s an average for 63 miles a year. That means Peoria is about 63 miles behind on their sealcoat plan after skipping 2010. And after putting off preventative maintenance this year, too, the City will be 126 miles behind. How much money will we really have saved once we have to rehabilitate poor and failing roads as a result of this neglect?

But, you may object, we simply don’t have the money to budget for it. As necessary as sealcoating is for preventative maintenance, if we can’t afford it, we just can’t do it.

And that brings us back to the Pioneer Parkway extension. If our budget is so tight that we have to neglect necessary maintenance of our existing streets, what is the warrant for spending any money on planning or building a new arterial road? How many streets would $87,369 sealcoat? If we have that money in the budget, we should put it toward maintaining streets, not building new ones.

An extended Pioneer Parkway would be nice. It might cut five minutes off a drive from Allen Road to Route 91. But it’s a want, not a need. It’s been estimated that this new road will cost $50 million to complete. Is your driving convenience worth $10 million a minute? Is it worth keeping the rest of the City’s streets (maybe even yours) in a perpetual state of disrepair?

When funds are tight, the Council needs to make “tough decisions,” as councilman Eric Turner reminded us frequently during the campaign. I hope he and the other council members make the “tough decision” to vote “no” on the Pioneer Parkway extension, and put that money instead toward maintaining our existing streets.