Evanston’s alley paving program has gotten so popular it’s running out of money.
Under the program the city pays 50 percent of the cost of paving an alley, while the residents abutting the alley pay the other half through a special assessment on their property tax bills.
Traditionally it’s been a slow and often fruitless process to get more than half the residents along an alley to agree through a petition process to be taxed for paving projects, but Assistant City Manager Marty Lyons says demand for alley paving has grown tremendously over the past year.
Lyons says the city’s Board of Local Improvements has accepted six alley paving petitions this year, two others have been submitted, seven more petitions are being circulated and six other requests for petitions have been placed on a waiting list.
The city share of the cost of paving a single block of an alley typically runs around $250,000 — so with an annual budget for the program of $500,000 — the timeline for completing projects already in the planning stage now extends to 2021 and beyond.
After many decades of paving alleys through the special assessment process, about 40 percent of the city’s alleys remain unpaved.
That’s 30 miles of alley, which Lyons estimates would cost a total of $75 million to pave. At the current funding level, and with alley abutters continuing to pay half the cost, Lyons says, it would take 75 years to finish the job.
But the estimated life of an alley paving job, he says, is 75 years — so a lot of the alleys that have already been paved will need to be rebuilt by then.
Lyons will offer aldermen alternatives to the current approach at a City Council discussion tonight.
He says the city could shift funds from other programs or increase taxes or fees to fund more alley paving.
For example, he says, a 1 percent increase in the city’s gas tax would raise about $150,000 a year, or a $5 monthly increase in fees at the city’s parking garages would raise about $160,000 a year.