Valparaiso roadway paving projects will expand further with an additional $220,075 Community Crossings grant from the Indiana Department of Transportation according to an announcement last week by Gov. Eric Holcomb.

Valparaiso was already awarded Community Crossings funds earlier in the year, added to the city’s budgeted resources for paving, amounting to $8.8 million dedicated to 2024 summer paving projects.

“Historically, over the past several years, we have been committing about $3.5 million annually for road maintenance,” Valparaiso Mayor Jon Costas said.

“Compare that to the annual budget of about $300,000 when I first took office 20 years ago. Certainly, costs have increased, but this aggressive annual budget of nearly $9 million for 2024 reflects a renewed priority on roadways, and we continue to seek ways to keep this progress going.”

Valparaiso City Council members approved a final vote in April 2024 for Ordinance No. 7, 2024, hailed as “the largest paving program the city of Valparaiso has ever taken on,” as described by Valparaiso city manager Bill Oeding.

In March, the council assigned Oeding to take a closer look at the roads from an earlier speculative provided list, based on feedback from the council and residents. Valparaiso Streets Department director of engineering Max Rehlander assisted Oeding, who then provided updates at the council’s meeting before the final vote and approval.

Oeding and Rehlander have assured skeptical council members, such as Emilie Hunt, D-At-large, and Barbara Domer, D-3rd, that roads and streets are evaluated each year.

“One of my top priorities when campaigning for public office was to support increased funding for city infrastructure maintenance and improvements,” Domer said in a prepared statement. “I heard residents when they said we all deserve the resources to maintain the infrastructure of all our neighborhoods.”

The city council and city leadership met and hammered out an $8.8 million funding plan for 2024 paving. Mayor Costas, Domer said, stated that Valparaiso will have the best roadways in the area.

“I replied, ‘As it should be.’ We have a beautiful downtown which taxpayer dollars have supported,” she said. “It is well past time to get our neighborhood roads, sidewalks, alleys and curbs in tip-top shape.”

Rehlander said the city uses an asset management system, the national PASER rating system, which stands for Pavement Assessment Surface Evaluation Rating and assigns a value of 1 through 10 to each roadway. The number reflects the quality, including things like the amount and frequency of cracks and potholes. A brand new road is rated a 10 whereas older fractured streets requiring extensive reconstruction are at 1 and 2.

“The PASER system attempts to provide objective criteria and is beneficial in choosing the right application for the right road at the right time,” Rehlander said. “Each year, the engineering department assesses the road condition via PASER, then combines that with other factors such as functional classification and amount of traffic to provide a recommendation. We try to maximize our funding for the best long-term results.”

The funding for Valparaiso paving projects is provided from budgeted accounts, and any additional funds taken from money earned from local road and street budget allotments, as well as money from the cigarette tax, motor vehicle restricted fund and riverboat funds.

Earlier in the year, Hunt expressed displeasure that despite having the requisite funds, the city engineering and streets department couldn’t provide a list of which roadways and streets would benefit from paving.

Rehlander said this concern has been remedied now that the city’s engineering department has created an interactive map showing roadway projects, including life-extending crack sealing, as well as sidewalk projects.

The map allows users to find all 2024 infrastructure improvements and even enter addresses to find projects nearby. By clicking the project location on the map, users can learn more about the project scope and location.

The map is available at tinyurl.com/ValpoWorks2024.

“Once a residential street has been repaved, it has a lifespan for at least 15 years,” Oeding assured.

Philip Potempa is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.