City Controller: Public Works Crews Wasting Money

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- On Brighton Road in the North Side, there is new pavement and new yellow lines.

Coming soon are new therma plastic lane markers at a cost of about $400 each.

City Controller Michael Lamb says the problem is all over the city – an uncoordinated paving schedule allows city crews to put markers down one day and tear them up a short time later in a repaving project.

He blames it all on bad planning.

"They cost $400 a piece. We probably lost close to $10,000," Lamb said. "And that $10,000, you might as well have just threw it in the sewer."

Last Wednesday, we showed you Steuben Street in the West End. Lines were painted at 8 a.m. by city crews torn up in a repaving project at 9 a.m.

The city admitted it goofed up, but not in the case of the bike lane markers.

"Plan it? How do you plan it when you don't have a budget?" Public Works Director Rob Kaczorowski said.

He admits the markers were torn up. The money was spent and has to be spent again to replace them.

However, there was no long term funding. No one knew which streets were going to get paved if any, so they marked the bike lanes in the interest of public safety.

"The amount of streets that we pave and the amount of streets that do get paved is based on the budget we have," Kaczorowski explained. "So, the uncertainty of the budget – I can't give you a detailed list of streets unless I have a detailed budget amount of how many miles streets I'll be able to do."

"So, I can't even forecast or plan with the uncertainty of my budget," he added.

RELATED LINKS
More Local News
More Reports By Marty Griffin