Northampton is looking at a $3.57 million price tag for road work this year. That is the figure the Department of Public Works is putting toward fixing up streets that—to put it mildly—have seen better days. Director Donna LaScaleia recently laid out the situation to the City Council, and the numbers are pretty sobering. More than half of the city’s 150 roads are currently classified as being in poor condition. Actually, it is worse than that; they need total base rehabilitation. It is one of those things where you look at a street and think, yeah, that probably needs more than just a patch job, but who has the money for a total rebuild?
The City Council did give the green light to a massive $132.3 million fiscal year Capital Improvement Plan, which covers everything from now until 2031. It’s a huge chunk of change, but looking at the fiscal year 2027 plan, you see about $29.9 million in spending. Of that, a fair amount comes from general funds and enterprise accounts—you know, the money set aside for sewer and water and the like. Sitting in that room, the air was a bit thick, smelling faintly of cold coffee and old paper, while LaScaleia walked through the list of “big ticket items” that keep the department up at night.
She listed off a dozen or so streets slated for the current round of work: Florence Street, Kingsley Avenue, Belmont, Carpenter, Randolph Place, and the list goes on. It feels like a long list, but when you consider how many roads are failing, it is just a drop in the bucket, really. Or maybe not—it’s something, at least.
Then there is the issue of asphalt prices. LaScaleia mentioned that because asphalt relies so heavily on oil, the cost is basically a hostage to global politics. She sounded genuinely concerned, almost frustrated, noting that the current climate makes it impossible to guess what things will cost even six months from now. If the price of gas spikes, those estimates they made? They go right out the window. It makes you wonder how they plan anything at all when the cost of materials feels so volatile — it is definitely a gamble.
They are also balancing the Complete Streets ordinance, which basically means they try to fix sidewalks whenever they repave a road. It makes sense, obviously. You don’t want to pave a street and then rip it up a month later for a sidewalk issue. On top of that, they have separate projects in Village Hill and near South Street, which will cost somewhere between $1 million and $1.5 million.
Stormwater is the other headache. The system is old and failing, and it ruins the roads from underneath. It is expensive to fix, and the funds are tight. LaScaleia said they have had less than $1 million a year to split between the flood control system and the storm drains that prevent the roads from rotting away. It is a tough spot to be in, trying to manage infrastructure that feels like it is crumbling faster than the budget can keep up.