Past leaders knew value of good city streets

When I was an ROTC student at Mizzou in the early 1950s walking along Rollins Road, I dreaded rainy days. Rollins was a narrow street lined by potholes filled with muddy water, and every passing car would splash dirty slop onto my uniform, which was expensive to clean.

“How could a town with an engineering college have such bad streets?” I wondered, and I promised myself I would do something about it someday if given the chance.

Luckily, other Columbians had similar thoughts and were soon to change our streets for the better. Recognizing that a city’s internal thoroughfares are just as important as its highways, they showed great leadership in developing our transportation system.

Columbia’s modern transportation effort began in earnest in the 1950s, and we are fortunate that we implemented policies that required good standards for new construction in the early 1960s. The tireless work and foresight of men such as former mayors Howard Lang Jr. and Kenneth Puckett and former highway commissioner A.D. Sappington brought our city’s main urban highways, including Providence Road, Tandy-Price-College Street (now College Avenue) and a major portion of Stadium Boulevard (once referred to as the “outer loop”).

When I came to Columbia in 1960, 3rd Street had only recently become Providence Road, and College and Stadium were set for construction. At first, Stadium was shown to extend eastward before turning southeast up the winding hill on Old 63. It took years pushing MODOT to construct U.S. 63 and the Stadium connection we know today.

Broadway was another major arterial street, and the widening of its western section was part of the thoroughfare plan at the time. In 1973, I brought a plan to the City Council to widen West Broadway to 48 feet, creating a relatively narrow, four-lane, tree-lined roadway with new sidewalks and underground power lines. The council voted to do it. We had even arranged federal funding for the project, but the plan was later voted down by the residents. Now the City Council is again considering widening West Broadway and even including a pedway as part of the project.

Just as important as these arterial streets are the collector thoroughfares, which are designed to collect traffic from neighborhood streets. In their 1964 plan, city consultants Hare and Hare emphasized the need to coordinate thoroughfare and land-use planning. As a general guideline, Columbia used the grid with arterial streets one mile apart and collector streets halfway between them.

This neighborhood concept was built on the idea of children walking to schools without having to cross a major thoroughfare. One example is Russell Boulevard Elementary School at the center of the neighborhood, bound by arterials Stadium Boulevard., Broadway and West Boulevard, with Russell Boulevard, College Park Drive and Rollins Street serving as collector streets to the school and adjoining Kiwanis Neighborhood Park. The school and park were placed next to each other so the city and school system could jointly use the park facilities.

While updating the city’s thoroughfare plan soon after I arrived in town, I quickly realized that the thoroughfare plan should closely coordinate with its land use plan. Once it’s in place, it is equally important that the city adhere to the plan and not allow special-interest groups to block the construction of roads. For example, when collector streets such as College Park Drive were not extended southward as planned, more traffic was funneled through neighborhoods on streets such as Highridge Drive.

Regular traffic and emergency movement make it necessary for cities to develop a system of roadways rather than rely on a single roadway to serve a particular neighborhood. When planned roads aren’t constructed, they force too much traffic onto a single road, hindering quick emergency access while requests for stop signs and traffic-calming devices escalate and the heavily used existing thoroughfare becomes inadequate, requiring costly improvements. In addition, many residents buy or lease homes based on existing or projected traffic flow; the surprise element drives them to complain to City Hall.

Some major streets in the plan that have not been constructed or for which construction has been deferred include Stadium Boulevard from U.S. Highway 63 to I-70 and Providence Road from Bear Creek to U.S. 63 North. Without the construction of Providence northward, an extra lane had to be constructed on each side of I-70 between Providence and Rangeline Streets for north-south traffic, in effect treating I-70 as if it were just another collector street with a jog deliberately designed to discourage heavy traffic through the neighborhood. Extending Providence Road to make it a north-south trafficway will help keep unnecessary traffic off I-70.

State and federal funds might have been available for the extensions of Providence and Stadium, but government officials backed off after they perceived a lack of local public support. Today the city is funding the Providence extension, and it is jointly funding the Stadium extension studies.

Shortly after I became Public Works director, I worked with then-City Manager Don Allard, Mayor Robert C. Smith Jr. and the City Council to update the thoroughfare plan and to develop a street reconstruction and maintenance program. In 1962, a citizens’ committee led by Louis Vandiver worked hard reviewing street standards. Now deceased, Vandiver was a partner in the Rollins, Vandiver and Digges insurance firm and carried the name of the long-time Columbia family for whom Vandiver Drive is named. The committee’s recommendations were adopted by the City Council in 1962 and later adopted by CATSO, the Columbia Area Transportation Study Organization, which leads Columbia’s transportation planning efforts today.

The problem was that new subdivisions quickly sprouting up around town had streets that were not up to “improved” standards. They had ditches, a minimal base and blacktopping that didn’t hold up to bad weather, causing high annual maintenance costs.

The narrow ditches made it unsafe for children walking to elementary schools like Russell and Fairview. At the same time, it is difficult to design sidewalks on narrow and hilly streets. Although it was agreed that sidewalks should be built at least on one side of all reconstructed collector and arterial streets, the City Council directed that an intermediate solution be found before the streets could be improved.

I learned of a new machine that made asphaltic concrete curbs. We didn’t allow such curbs on new streets, but we used the machine to make short barriers on one side of the road to protect children walking to school and moved the ditches back from the roadway when possible. City Counselor George Nickolaus publicly nicknamed them “Beck barriers,” a label that did not disappear until the streets received their real sidewalks.

The committee and the City Council decided that new and rebuilt residential streets should be 32 feet wide, which could allow parking on both sides and slow-moving traffic through neighborhoods. They were constructed with curbs, gutters and a base of either 6 inches of rock treated with hot liquid asphalt and a 2-inch asphaltic concrete overlay or 6 inches of concrete.

I wanted to stop the bleeding of yearly maintenance and operations costs. We needed to stop building bad infrastructure. We would make sure the new streets were built correctly and would upgrade the new ones.

When the inevitable question of who would pay for the new streets came up, the City Council decided that the cost of new residential streets would be borne by the sub-divider or developer and would be included in the cost of a lot or home. The citizens’ committee and City Council thought that homeowners utilizing street frontages owed their fair share of local street-upgrade costs. If rebuilt later, the cost would be tax billed to the abutting property owners.

However, the cost of reconstructing existing unimproved streets would be shouldered in partnership with the city because the improved streets would benefit both the property owners and the community. Property owners within the city would pay all costs except intersection, engineering and unusual costs.

Residents were given the option to either pay for the improvements at a one-time cost of $5 or $6 per foot, with later maintenance provided by the city at no charge, or to pay maintenance costs every few years of $1 per foot, later raised by the state to $2 per foot, for their unimproved streets. Residents could opt not to reconstruct their deteriorating streets, but they would have to pay for maintenance work, such as ditching and resurfacing, which usually only lasts three to five years before having to be done again. For collector and arterial streets, which were used by the entire community, the City Council decided the city also would pay the extra cost of widening and street thickness. Initially, contractors were paid through tax bills, but later the city established a revolving fund, reducing the cost of the project for both the city and the residents.

As directed by the City Council, after surveying street conditions, I brought a list of streets slated for reconstruction or maintenance to the City Council each year. It also was my job to meet with property owners, obtain easements and get the streets built. From 1962 to 1967 alone, we reconstructed more than 20 miles of streets at a cost of about $2 million, three quarters of which was paid by property owners and one quarter by the city. To date, more than 80 miles of streets have been constructed under these policies. We received an award for our efforts, and a number of cities borrowed Columbia’s policy resolution and ordinances.

Property owners provided necessary easements, most of which I personally acquired without cost to the project. We all should be grateful for these Columbians who were so willing to help the common good. It doesn’t always happen that way today.

I don’t recall receiving any street-reconstruction petitions that were not carried out. There were many lively public hearings for both street reconstruction and maintenance tax bill projects, but the City Council held firm. Even through changes in administrations and councils, city leaders were persuasive in implementing what they felt was a fair and important policy even when it involved them personally.

When it came time for reconstruction of Russell Boulevard and Rollins Street, collector streets in poor condition, former Mayor Robert Smith Jr. had a large corner lot and had to be tax-billed on both sides. Mayor Smith had cranked up the program and launched the reconstruction of a great number of streets, and he did not hesitate to move forward to assure that good streets and sidewalks were built for the Russell students even though there were large petitions against it. Other mayors and councilpersons also did not hesitate to proceed on streets they abutted, including Ed Brown on Longfellow Lane, Mary Anne McCollum on William Street, and Richard Knipp on a number of streets.

Improved city streets were a great neighborhood benefit because they provided additional roadway and parking space, removed ditches with their mosquito and weed problems, and often resulted in subsequent neighborhood improvements. Some who strongly opposed the project at first later called or wrote notes thanking the city for requiring their street to be paved.

In addition to the fact that maintaining improved streets is more is more economical than maintaining unimproved asphalt, the city needed curbs and gutters so that it could sweep the streets to reduce air pollution. It also needed to eliminate the problem of dealing with streets of varying widths throughout the city and cleared uncertainty over how new streets might affect neighbors’ trees and yards.

I recall widening Worley Street from West Boulevard to Clinkscales. It was designated a collector street to be reconstructed 38 feet wide with a sidewalk on one side. I was acquiring right-of-way from property owners Halloween week, and the goal was to pave a concrete street before winter.

As soon as I acquired the right-of-way, Billy Boyce paved one lane. He started east from Clinkscales toward West Boulevard, paving the north half of the street, and had completed about three quarters of the distance toward West Boulevard when, looking back to the west, we saw a car drive around the barrier and head eastward in the fresh concrete until it bogged down. Boyce yelled at the top of his voice and waved his arms to stop the car, which the driver, a mother, and her four kids safely exited. Construction workers worked throughout the evening hours to repair the damage, and markings in the pavement stand as a reminder of the incident.

With changing City Councils, the city’s polices were reviewed by a number of citizens’ committees and remained the same until recent years. One year new City Council members faced a very controversial public hearing for maintenance tax billing on a rather long list of streets, some in well-to-do neighborhoods. After the hearing, a number of these streets were eliminated, but were added again at the next meeting after the new councilpersons gave them due consideration.

Another seminal event happened in 1975 when homeowners on Oakland Gravel Road sued the city over improvements. The city built a 38-foot collector street with a sidewalk, and the courts determined that the benefit for all property owners was not equal to the cost of equivalent construction of a residential street, which changed the procedures and pro-rated costs that followed. New policies were adopted and are in place today. This includes tax billing on collector and arterial streets for only the cost of curbs and gutters.

Today, our maintenance cost would be phenomenal, taking a major bite out of our annual budget if the street policies were not implemented. We must continue to assure good construction and implement a timely maintenance schedule to assure our system does not deteriorate. We owe it to those selfless civic leaders of our past.