Streets get a much-needed makeover in city of Monterey

UPDATE: 3/12/2016 6:15 PM:

Spring has sprung and so has construction season. Drivers who live or work in the city of Monterey face a bumpy commute over the next few weeks because several major roadways will get renovations.

Starting this week, public works crews will be removing and replacing damaged pavement along Lower Ragsdale, Garden Road and Pearl and Pacific Streets. City officials say they’re overhauling some 2 million square feet worth of streets.

“They’re going to notice black streets, pot holes will be fixed and nice fresh striping,” said Steve Wittry, city engineer for Monterey.

People who live or work in those areas can expect on-street parking restrictions, street closures or detours and sidewalk closures. Business owner Candy Thomas says the sidewalk outside of her shop on Lighthouse Avenue should be replaced, even if it means slow sales during construction.

“If people can’t get into your store, hello, you know?,” said Thomas. “That’s going to affect your business. But as with anything else, we have to be willing to take some inconveniences. It’s unreasonable. It’s unreasonable to be a business owner and never want to be inconvenienced when the city is trying to do improvements.”

Unfortunately, some of those improvements may happen as the city of Monterey ramps up for a busy tourism season.

“Because we have so many sidewalks that need to be repaired, we actually need to fix them as soon as possible,” Wittry said. “So we are going to have a little bit of overlap with some of our tourist areas, we’ll try to keep the disturbance to a minimum but there will be an overlap with that contract.”

All the money for these projects is coming from Measure P, approved by nearly 75 percent of voters in 2014. It OK’d a 1 percent local district sales tax to be used to maintain streets, sidewalks, pot holes and repair the city’s 100-year-old storm drain system to protect the Monterey Bay.

ORIGINAL POST:

If you spend any time in the city of Monterey, here’s a heads-up.

Crews will be removing and replacing badly damaged pavement over the next two weeks, impacting some major roads and thoroughfares, including Garden Road, Pearl Street, Lower Ragsdale and Pacific Street. Construction will happen in phases. The work may close streets, resulting in detours.

KION’s Mariana Hicks will have more on the repairs that will fix 2 million square feet of streets, coming up tonight on our newscasts at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m.