By Adrienne Boudreau:
Erie County is set to receive almost $700,000 in Extreme Winter Recovery funds from the recently passed state budget, which allotted $40 million total to state Extreme Winter Recovery.
The money will help boost the Consolidated Highway Improvement Program (CHIPS), a program which gives communities funding to repair and rebuild local roads, highways and bridges.
The City of Buffalo will receive $383, 797 for an increase of 9.1 percent since the 2013 – 2014 budget.
With the year’s horrible winter taking a toll on the roads, vehicles and municipal budgets this aid is certainly needed. The increase in funding is aimed to not only help repair the community’s broken roads but to enhance their road improvement plans for the future.
“After enduring one of the harshest winters in recent memory, Western New York’s towns, cities and villages are now rushing to repair roads and fix potholes, while grappling with strained municipal budgets. This urgently-needed funding for extreme winter recovery will provide our communities with necessary support to help reconstruct local roads,” said Senator Tim Kennedy. “Thankfully, the state has heeded our call for increased funding to assist local towns and cities struggling under this winter’s heavy costs. These funds will bolster efforts to repair pothole-riddled roads and strengthen our aging infrastructure for the long-term.”
The route from the West Side to the Walden Galleria, from Summer to Best Streets to Walden Avenue, was a battlefield today for this writer. And on one occasion on Vermont Street there has actually just been a pothole so massive the city has simply put an orange cone in the center of it, hoping to steer drivers away from it.