Brick Streets on Dunedin's Repair List May See Delays

Dunedin's brick streets may be among casualties of the city's lean proposed budget next year. 

Many aging brick streets are on the list of projects being reserved for alternating years in an effort to conserve money, city officials explained in a budget workshop July 15. 

"We're starting process of living within our means," said Doug Hutchens, city public works and utilities director. 

City staff members said they've had to re-prioritize which streets get fixed and when because county funds, which help cover repair costs, are being conserved.
To make it work, Dunedin's planned repairs to brick streets, bridges and sidewalk expansions are being delayed and addressed on alternating years, officials said. 

And fixing brick roads is not an inexpensive process, city officials explained. 

For starters, the $25,000 a year budgeted for repair work typically pays for materials and temporary, part-time labor and ties up two or three public works employees for a month.

The brick streets in the worst conditions, such as Santa Barbara Drive, are west of Bayshore Boulevard and those "have absolutely no base," Keith Fogarty, public works and utilities division director, said.

"They pretty much sit on about four inches of lime rock that doesn't meet anybody's codes — not even private development. But the other bad part about it is it sits on clay," he explained.

Between the rainy season and the weight of delivery and garbage trucks, the bricks "just don't hold up. They start becoming unraveled," Fogarty said.  

Complicating the issue of repairs is the fact that no FDOT standards exist for repairing brick streets built on clay, he said. 

Fogarty said he thinks Dunedin has a method that works and delaying the annual budgeted $25,000 allotment would allow the department to contract the work out for $50,000 every other year.

Although none of Dunedin's brick roads come close to the condition of those west of Bayshore Boulevard, parts of which have had to be barricaded, some unevenness exists in other parts of the city, especially around manholes.
 
City staff has prioritized streets on its brick repair list, and although some are still neglected, Fogarty believes, the city is caught up on the "worst of the worst" streets for now.