City of Taylor hoping new fee will fix 'poor' roads

Yolanda Martinez is fed up with Taylor streets. 

"They've got pots and holes everywhere you've got to go, you've got to kind of drive around them.  It's pitiful," she said.

Martinez says she's lived on Lizzie Street since the early '90s and it's always been a rough ride.

"25 years I've been here and I've never seen them do anything, just patch them up here and there," Martinez said.

She says the roads have even made her smooth-driving car sound terrible.

"It didn't take too long on these roads.  These roads are bad.  I'd rather live out in the country on the dirt roads than this," she said.

Taylor City Manager Isaac Turner says 59% of Taylor streets are classified as being in poor condition.  A $30 to $60 million issue council has been trying to fix for years.

Council asked city staff to come up with an idea.  Turner says they came up with the "transportation user fee."

"This fee will be used for 2 purposes.  One to fix our poor streets.  Those streets need to be rebuilt and it's exponentially more expensive to do that once it gets to that condition," Turner said.

And to repair the streets in fair condition.

"The fair streets are streets that need to be overlaid or resealed or something like that which is much cheaper per mile," he said.

So what will this look like?  An $8 a month fee per residential unit.  For businesses, depending on the size and type of business, the fee will range between $25 and $133.

Many business owners we spoke with wouldn't go on camera.  But they weren't too happy about that idea.

"I think that all of us would prefer to not have to have another fee.  All of us would prefer to do that.  Again with what we're looking at, $30 to $60 million we just don't have those resources.

Yolanda Martinez says the $8 isn't a problem.  She just hopes the city really gets the job done.

"They just take our money.  They'll raise this and that and what do they do?  We don't see nothing fixed!  You know for God's sake do something!  Don't just say it.  It's like you bark and bark, it's like a dog that don't bite.  You've got to do it, do it, do it," she said.

Taylor City Council is expected to vote on this issue this Thursday at their meeting.  If passed, the fee may go into effect in June.