Residents of a St. Paul neighborhood rejected a street reconstruction project set for this summer, and drivers on bumpy Ayd Mill Road will be the beneficiaries.
St. Paul Public Works plans to use $3.5 million freed up from the canceled Phase II Woodlawn/Jefferson project to put down fresh pavement on a 1 ½-mile segment of Ayd Mill Road by this fall.
That was not supposed to happen for another two years, said Kathy Lantry, the city's director of Public Works. But the rapidly deteriorating conditions and flood of complaints about the pothole-ridden road being aired on social media prompted the decision to move the project up. Several motorists also directly griped to the city.
"The ongoing efforts to regularly patch and maintain the road are expensive and are no longer sufficient or sustainable," Lantry said. "We cannot wait until 2021 to undertake this project."
Ayd Mill Road is one of the busiest city streets in St. Paul, handling about 24,000 vehicles a day. It's also been one of the most costly to patch and repair.
"We know that we regularly are sending crews to patch Ayd Mill Road," said city spokeswoman Lisa Hiebert, who did not have a specific dollar amount that the city spends annually making fixes there.
Plans call for crews to grind off the top 2 inches of asphalt between Selby Avenue and Interstate 35E and replace it with a fresh 2 inches of asphalt to create a smoother driving surface.
That can't come too soon for motorists such as Pat Walker. Late last month she was driving on Ayd Mill near Portland Avenue when she swerved to avoid a series of road depressions. She sank into a large pothole and the result was a torn tire and a $200 repair bill.
