ELMHURST, IL – Elmhurst plans to do something it hasn’t done for the last couple of years – budget money for repaving concrete streets.
This year and last, the city zeroed out money for concrete streets, instead allocating all the money for asphalt ones.
However, $621,000 is earmarked in next year’s budget for concrete streets.
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Last fall, Alderman Michael Bram pushed for the city to include $540,000 for concrete streets in this year’s budget.
Many of those streets are in north Elmhurst, particularly in Bram’s northeast Ward 3. The Ward 3 streets were paved in the late 1960s and have a lifespan of 50 to 70 years, according to the city.
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At a City Council meeting last week, Bram said the $540,000 wasn’t enough. Such an amount does not keep up with the rising costs of projects, he said.
The $621,000 amounts to a 15 percent hike over three years, Bram noted. That’s at the same time that asphalt streets are slated to get a 15 percent increase in one budget year alone, he said.
“To only see a 15 percent increase over a three-year period, I think that’s worth revisiting,” he said.
No decisions have been made on next year’s budget.
At a budget meeting last December, Bram presented documents that he said showed the city was way behind schedule on replacing concrete streets.
Bram pointed to a 2014 plan calling for the city to resurface all concrete streets in a dozen years. At the time, the staff recommended the plan and the City Council approved it.
By last year, though, the city said the work would not get done until 2032, six years later than planned.
City officials said many of the streets in northeast Elmhurst were in fair or good condition. They also said half the concrete streets in northeast Elmhurst had been resurfaced in the last decade.
But Bram protested that the city was planning to hike its asphalt budget by $700,000 to $3.9 million. He said the city was not on track with concrete streets.
Mayor Scott Levin disagreed, saying the city was on track. He argued that if anything, those on asphalt streets were at a disadvantage because their streets don’t last 50 to 75 years.
Bram said six years behind was not on track, asking, “Why are we kidding ourselves?”
After last year’s debate, the City Council voted 12-1 against Bram’s proposal to budget $540,000 for concrete streets in 2024.
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