Hollister received $4.5 million for citywide street and road
rehabilitation, according to a press release issued last week.
The money, which was handed down by the state Transportation
Committee, will help fund road repairs around the city, said Steve
Wittry, Hollister engineering manager.
Hollister received $4.5 million for citywide street and road rehabilitation, according to a press release issued last week.
The money, which was handed down by the state Transportation Committee, will help fund road repairs around the city, said Steve Wittry, Hollister engineering manager.
Wittry said that the funds had been earmarked to be given to Hollister during the last fiscal year, but with the state’s budget crisis the money wasn’t distributed.
The money, which was a one-time deal, could be used for any transportation needs, as long as the area being funded was outside the redevelopment area. So, certain roads and streets, like those downtown, are off limits.
“This will give us 45-50 segments (blocks) from intersection to intersection, that we can fund,” Wittry said.
As a ballpark figure Wittry speculated that the funding will likely allow them to do about 12-15 miles of street.
One of the options for use of the money was the Highway 25 bypass, but the city opted not to use the funds for that because of more pressing needs elsewhere. Wittry said that had the city opted to not fund the street repairs the city might have had to wait another five to 10 years before it could finance the repairs with local funds.
One of the possible areas Wittry talked about funding the area around Memorial and Sunset drives.
“We were obviously pleased to get these funds, but we’d known they were coming. We were told we were getting them several years ago and we’d expected them last year, then the money wasn’t available because of the budget crisis,” Wittry said.
