Imagine going back in time and riding in a buckboard being pulled by a team of horses. As you ride over the brick paved streets in the fair city of Alliance, the less than smooth and comfortable ride has jarred your teeth loose and ruined your seating area for days. Not to mention the pleasure of sitting at the rear-end of a horse. Thank goodness we have advanced. Although on a cold winter day when your shocks, struts and springs are frozen solid, you may feel like you've gone back in time. Fortunately, the city has a paving program to help improve your ride.

This program is funded from three different sources; city, county and state. Generally the city's paving program receives about $480,000 from city income tax revenues. 7% of the income tax money received has to go into the road maintenance fund. Out of that fund, streets are selected for paving by the city's engineer, Victoria McCauley. Vicky gets in her car and drives over every street and rates that street from one to ten, with ten being the worst. She looks for structural failure and the "ride" of the street. She also determines how the street could be fixed or repaired by the street department, how old it is, and the traffic load. If all other factors are equal, the street with the highest traffic load will be paved first. And even though a street may look fine, there may be structural failures brought on by small cracks in the pavement leading to deterioration of the sub-base.

The second source of funding is county money. The county usually allocates around $110,000 a year to the city. The county stipulates which streets this money can be used on and furnishes a list to the city. These streets are longest in the city and usually connect with a county or township road. The streets are: Mahoning, Liberty, Arch, Union, Rockhill, Sawburg, Freshley, Vine, Walnut, Ely, Main, Summit, Glamorgan, and State. This year Liberty Avenue has been chosen for paving.

The third source is the State of Ohio, from the state highway fund. The state's money comes from vehicle license and gasoline tax. They usually award the city somewhere near $50,000 a year. The city sometimes hangs onto this money to use as match for a state project. There are two state routes in Alliance; Route 183 and Route 62, otherwise known as Union Avenue and State Street. The state decides which of their routes will be paved, according to their maintenance schedule. The city has some input, but not much. When paving a state route within Alliance, the state pays 80% of the cost and the city 20%.

Out of the yearly funding the city receives, there is also bond debt that the city is repaying. In 1990, bonds were issued for $1,335,000 to do paving and street improvements. The debt service on these bonds is $160,000 a year and will be paid off in October of 2003. That means we will have $160,000 more in the paving program in the future.

Bids for the paving program have been received and are to be awarded on Friday, August 9, 2002. Actual paving will start after August 26. If you have questions about the paving program, call the Engineering and Building Department at 330-823-5122.