Poor budgets cause problems for Rochester Streets

Desperate economic times call for desperate economic measures. So in order to close the budget deficit the City of Rochester has decided to delay all road repairs for a year. Instead they are spending some of the money saved on a road remediation process called oil and stone. While this seems like a good “band aid” solution, this process creates more problems than it solves. Rochester has a combined sewage and water system. So the waste from your sink mixes with the rain run off on the streets and goes to one place for treatment. When you put stones on the streets some of these end up going down the drain. This will eventually clog the sewers but even if this does not happen, it poses another problem for the system. These stones will help block material from flowing freely and this build up of material will eventually harden, creating a solid lining which is very costly to remove. There is also the oil, which is put down with the stones and also runs into the sewers and thus our water supply.

Now perhaps this would be acceptable if the oil and stones permanently protected our streets but they do not. This procedure only delays the need for repairs and burdens future administrations with more problems. It seems to me that if we have $4 million to oil and stone roads, then we should be able to fix a few instead and avoid the unnecessary complications which this process causes in an urban environment. And to stay on our theme, if the City assessed properties fairly and appropriately, we would not have to make these kinds of choices.