Dallas's Streets Aren't a Disaster. Yet.

Later today I'll post at least the first part of my chat with City Manager Mary Suhm about how she plans to gutcut the city's FY2010-'11 budget, which needs to shed $131 million even after last year's $180-some-odd-million bloodletting. But here's a relevant sneak peek related to an item on...

By Robert Wilonsky

June 16, 2010

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Later today I'll post at least the first part of my chat with City Manager Mary Suhm about how she plans to ~~gut~~cut the city's FY2010-'11 budget, which needs to shed $131 million even after last year's $180-some-odd-million bloodletting. But here's a relevant sneak peek related to an item on the city council's briefing to-do list today: the Department of Street Services budget in the coming year. Within, Assistant City Manager Forest Turner acknowledges there's only enough dough to repave some 77 miles of streets -- way down from the 400 miles that got some TLC back in '07-'08.

Said Suhm when I asked her about how the streets will be impacted by the cuts: "I'd like to keep streets at the level it is now. That's not a good level, but to take it down any more would be disastrous." Meanwhile, here's a look at how happy we're said to be with streets at this very moment. The council four years ago set 80-percent satisfied as the benchmark, up from 75 percent in the mid-1990s. Meanwhile, I just joined the Fix Lemmon Avenue! Facebook group.

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