TOLEDO, Ohio — Wednesday marks the beginning of residential repaving season in the Glass City.
Like many of the city's neighborhood streets, Beechway Boulevard in south Toledo has seen better days, and is long overdue for repaving.
"The street has deteriorated so much. It's one of the main thoroughfares of the neighborhood, so it gets a lot of traffic and a lot of pedestrian traffic too," said Allison Snyder, leader of the Beverly Block Watch
Which is why Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz held a press conference there to kickoff the city's 2021 Residential Road Repaving program.
According to the mayor, the residential repaving program will be nearly 15 times the size it was in 2020 thanks to additional funding from the 1/4 percent income tax approved by voters in November.
"Remember we said during Issue 4 that we were going to fix a bunch of roads? Well, here it is. We are," said Mayor Kapszukiewicz.
In 2020, the city of Toledo was only able to repave 7 residential streets.
In 2021 however, they'll be doing 109.
It will come out to about 42 miles of street repaving.
The city will receive an additional $20 million a year for 4 years from the temporary income tax.
City officials believe the extra construction work will be a boon to the local economy.
"$20 million a year for the next 4 years - that's actually also a boost to our economy. You know, there are hard working men and women who work here in Toledo that are going to have their hands full getting this work done," said Kapszukiewicz.
For residents of Beechway Boulevard, seeing this repaving work begin on their street makes the slight bump in income tax well worth it.
"I'm all for that, I'm all for improvements being made where it's needed. I love my city, and things like this are necessary," said April Rumschlag, a Beverly neighborhood resident for more than 5 years
Mayor Kapszukiewicz says all 109 contracts have already been awarded, and all of the projects are expected to be finished by mid-October.
Click here to see all of the current and future road construction projects that are planned in the city in 2021
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