Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Available On Air Stations
Watch Live

Politics

Faulconer: San Diego Roads Need Repairs But No More Taxes To Do Job

City crews repave Allied Road in San Diego's Allied Gardens neighborhood, Oct. 20, 2015.
Claire Trageser
City crews repave Allied Road in San Diego's Allied Gardens neighborhood, Oct. 20, 2015.

Faulconer: San Diego Roads Need Repairs But No More Taxes To Do Job
Mayor Kevin Faulconer visited Allied Road to highlight his plan to repair 1,000 miles of streets in five years, but he said he won't support new taxes for repairing the city's infrastructure.

A street in San Diego's Allied Gardens neighborhood that was labeled one of the city's worst got a complete makeover Tuesday when city crews repaved it.

Mayor Kevin Faulconer visited Allied Road to highlight his program to repair 1,000 miles of streets in five years. He said more than 300 miles of roads will be fixed this fiscal year.

Advertisement
Potholes cover Allied Road in Allied Gardens in this undated photo.
City Councilman Scott Sherman's Office
Potholes cover Allied Road in Allied Gardens in this undated photo.

But Faulconer said he won't support a potential ballot measure for 2016 that would collect more money for repairing the city's infrastructure. City Councilman Mark Kersey has floated the idea for the measure but has not yet released details on it. The San Diego Association of Governments is also considering a countywide infrastructure ballot measure.

"My focus is on doing the job with the money we have coming in to City Hall," Faulconer said. "If you make streets and roads a priority, we're going to start to see the results."

Allied Road's condition was ranked one of the worst in the city based on a 2011 assessment of all road conditions, Faulconer said.

"This is where our dollars should be going, to make sure that streets are smooth, to make sure you have a road you can ride your bike on, you can drive your car on, no matter where you live in the city," he said.

San Diego began a new road assessment in February. Its results were scheduled to be published this fall but now will not be released until the end of the year.

Advertisement

City Councilman Scott Sherman, who represents Allied Gardens, said the street looked like a "war zone" before the repaving.

"If you sent a pothole crew out here, it would take four or five days to go through all the way up and down the street, and that wouldn't really be fixing the problem," Sherman said.

Corrected: December 6, 2024 at 11:43 AM PST
An earlier version of this story contained incorrect information from Councilman Scott Sherman about underground power lines on Allied Road. Sherman misspoke, and so the information has been removed.