Jonesboro, AR – (JonesboroRightNow.com) – July 11, 2024 – On Monday, JRN posed a question on our Facebook page asking you, our readers, to weigh in on the condition of certain roads in Jonesboro and Craighead County.
The comments section turned out to be a no-holds-barred forum with citizens discussing the worst roads in town, largest potholes, and grievances regarding the City of Jonesboro’s upkeep of roads in the city.
The idea for this article came from several complaints over the last few months. It seems no matter what “good news” we post on JRN, the comments section is filled with complaints that taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be spent on this project or that project, they should be spent on “fixing these roads” instead.
When we asked our readers to tell us specifically which roads needed the most help, we got dozens of recommendations for both city streets and county roads.
We placed every one of these recommendations onto this map, notated by blue icons.
Coincidentally, the City of Jonesboro made a Facebook post on Wednesday morning outlining planned road overlay and foundation projects.
We also placed each of the roads on their list onto this map. The planned overlay projects published by the City of Jonesboro are notated by pink lines.
When comparing the blue icons and the pink lines, none of them overlap.
So, we wondered, how did the City decide which roads to overlay, if it wasn’t by public input?
The city’s post states “These were selected based off road conditions data collected during the 2022 street inventory assessment.” That document is viewable here.
It does appear that many of the 2024 planned overlays coincide with suggestions from the 2022 study map.
The document states that each road is given a “score” based on several factors, and they are ranked from best to worst, alongside a color-coded map.
Additionally, city representatives stated, “Each year streets are designated for overlays for a variety of reasons including reports of condition issues from residents, staff direct observations and factoring in the time since maintenance last occurred. Those factors are cross referenced with our road study and an effort is made to spread the final projects as evenly as possible in each ward.”
In the City’s recent Facebook post, they outlined the list of streets that are scheduled for overlay in 2024. They stated that to date, 16 out of the 22 roads on the list have already been completed.
When asked to comment on the conversation regarding roadway conditions, City of Jonesboro Director of Communications Donna Malone said, “The city appreciates this information on location of potholes. And while it does require some time to schedule, prep and repair them, we hope residents will go to our website Jonesboro.org and use the “Report a problem” link. The more quickly we know, the more quickly repairs can be scheduled.”