DeKalb Times

During its April 24 meeting, the DeKalb City Council discussed its street improvement plan for the next five years, which officials said is one of the most aggressive the council has considered in several years.

The City plans the street improvements in five-year cycles, conducing surveys and accumulating ratings near the end of each cycle to help them determine the plans for the upcoming five years, City manager Bill Nicklas said. That is often the best way to keep them in good quality while maintaining organization, structure and responsible budgeting habits in the City government. The five-year structure allows for prioritization and planning for major improvements that might need to be done soon and also keeps all the streets on a continual rotation so that they do not get overlooked.

"The money we are devoting to street maintenance this year [is] $2,560,000 is the largest we've done in a long time and we're averaging around $2.2 to $2.5 million a year," Nicklas said in the meeting. "But that leaves us about a million and a half short of where we need to be to hold our own [in terms of road conditions]. That's not gain on and elevate the street conditions to satisfactory or even good. But we're not at that position right now. So what was proposed before you tonight is a $12 million program over five years. It's aggressive."

The overall rating of DeKalb’s streets is on the top side of the “poor” category, Nicklas said. The plan is to repair all of the Level 5 (lowest rated) streets in the city in this five-year plan, followed by the Level 4 streets in the next plan.

City engineer Zac Gill provided the council with more on the City's plans for the next five years, which included the current conditions of all the streets in the city as well as the schedule for projects for each of the next five years. The 2024 construction season will see major projects on Fairview, Heritage Ridge, the South Loops off West Hillcrest Drive, the Northern Illinois University campus area, and Loren Loop.

“I think if it didn't come across, the idea was we're transitioning now to the residential areas," Gill said in the meeting. “The previous program and previous desire had been [to] get the thoroughfares done."

Members of the council questioned how they might increase some of the funds to be used for these projects in order to stay ahead of street maintenance, since making improvements to their overall condition would bring ratings up. Other funds—such as federal grants for bridges—are also available, but they want to improve the City's overall road finances.