By Arren Kimbel-Sannit | Phoenix New Times
Walter Gray is straddling a divide, and it’s a divide that looks an awful lot like a pothole.
The self-described community activist from west Phoenix wants better, smoother streets — Council District 7, where he lives, will within five years have 91 miles of major roads that the city considers unworthy of a “good” rating, according to the Street Transportation department. This could mean anything from roads that are a little weathered to stretches of pavement pockmarked by potholes.
He also wants the light rail in the west Valley, and along with it localized economic development and infrastructure growth.
But there’s only so much money in Phoenix’s coffers, and the city says it would require around $1.6 billion to overlay the pavement on major, minor, and residential streets in the next five years — a total of 4,085 miles — until they reach the “good” rating, as measured by an empirical metric of road quality called the Pavement Condition Index.
