Tinley Looks to Repair Fewer Roads: The Gist

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The Gist:

Tinley Park doesn't have enough money to repair all the roads to the level its road consultant said it should. It's more than $1 million shy of the nearly $3.5 million to repair 54 Tinley Park roads due for some work. That's about 14 miles of road.

Rather than tap into reserves or do lower-quality work on all 14 miles, the village board's Public Works and Boundaries Committee on Tuesday recommended going out to bid for a per-unit cost, seeing what deals contractors can provide per square yard of asphalt, per foot of curb, etc., then seeing how much road that adds up to.

They estimate $2.75 million could repair 47 of those 54 roads. They'll put the highest-traffic ones first, but since the state lets villages add or subtract 25 percent from the scope of a project without re-bidding, if they get a really great deal they'll just have the contractor do more of the road.

The committee also looked at new pavement technologies that could pave the roads cheaper, but the options village staff found either aren't approved in Illinois or are good for parking lots but wouldn't work for roads with curbs and gutters.

What to read:

. The village's numbers in that story were preliminary. More accurate numbers are below.

Some Numbers:

Between construction costs and engineering, the village would need about $3.1 million for street resurfacing. It has about $2.05 million.

It has all of the $140,000 it would need for crack sealing.

The village's share of the planned work on the intersection of Harlem and 175th (so you can drive straight through and don't have to zigzag if you're heading along 175th) is $250,000. It has $228,000.

This means it has $2,418,000 for the $3,490,000 it needs. That's a total gap of $1,072,000.

Down the Road:

Villages pay for road repairs mainly through the Motor Fuel Tax, a tax on all gas sold in a city. Some village board members and staffers are worried the system might become outdated as hybrids and electric cars become more common.