Toledo city officials said they're wrapping up work on residential roads for the season this month.
The city's Department of Public Utilities deputy director Doug Stephens said their office admits that there have been some bumps with getting residential roadwork underway in the past.
But now the mayor's office said they're happy with how the roadwork is coming along, and residents of newly improved streets are happy, too.
Thomas Nowacki thought he'd never see the day Berwick Avenue would be repaved, and he's lived there for almost 40 years and has never seen it done.
"Just over 39 years. This is the first time it's been paved in those 39 years," Nowacki explained.
His neighbor, Douglas McMullen, has lived across the street for 21 years and said this was a long time coming; the potholes and sink holes were everywhere.
"My wife drove into a sink hole on our street. Just a lot of really bad things," McMullen said. He'd been putting out the call for street repairs for years.
Nowacki said every four months or so, a new pot hole would show up. The two said Berwick felt as though they were the street that's always forgotten about.
"I did not ever think this road was going to get paved again," Nowacki added.
Stephens said of the 108 streets the city has been working on this season, all but 16 are paved.
"We've got at least six that are already paved this week, and we'll be down to, hopefully by the end of this week, if weather is decent, we'll be down to one street left to finish," Stephens explained.
He added his appreciation for residents being patient as the crews work to get to as many roads done as fast and as efficiently as they can.
"We have about 1,200 miles of street, residential streets in the city of Toledo," Stephens said. "We're thankful to the voters and you know, we want to make sure that we reward that by getting the job done."
Berwick neighbor Ronald Ammerman has lived on this street for 30 years and could finally breathe a sigh of relief. He said he wasn't holding his breath for the improvements, but was always hopeful for someday.
"Patience is a virtue. That and just keep calling, maybe they can move you up," Ammerman noted.
Now that the road work, which the neighbors say started in April, has been completed, McMullen is happy to finally stop calling the city about it.
"They did a phenomenal job. They had a great process, to just make this work from one end to the other, very rapidly," McMullen said. "I think the mayor stepped up."
"They did what they said, they did it on time. They did it like they promised. I was kind of happy with it," Ammerman said.
Stephens said there is still some work to be done, even on the completed roads: some areas need seeding, top soil work, or contractors were charged with specific adjustments that had to be made.
Overall, 108 streets should be completely finished by this month.