CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — There's no shortage of complaints about the roads near the new Baker Middle School.
"These streets are really bad," said Irma Anzaldua, the grandmother of two Baker Middle Schoolers. "There's holes that are really deep, and all they ever do is just cover them a little bit. But, by the time you know it, they're deep again."
The city grades every street on a scale from one to 100. Streets graded 55 and below are eligible for rehabilitation, or even complete reconstruction. Several streets in the neighborhood containing Baker Middle School fall well below that threshold, but repairs are not in the works right now.
"At this point we don't have the funding to do those streets at all right now," Corpus Christi Director of Street Operations Albert Quintanilla said.
Quintanilla says he works with the city council in hopes of getting more road funding, but there's only so much money to go around.
"They realize the same thing we realize," Quintanilla said. "They have constraints. They can only budget so much, because you have to provide for all services in the city -- not just streets."
Anzaldua says there's another driving-related problem in that area.
"There's more traffic than normal to me," she said. "I have to come out early. I have two girls that I pick up, and I have to come early, because the traffic is really bad."
She blames the traffic on construction along Staples Street near Ray High School. She thinks drivers are avoiding that work zone, and instead driving down streets such as Casa Linda, that are already in need of maintenance. Quintanilla thinks differently.
"It's not a huge contributor," he said of the Staples construction zone. "There might be some (added traffic) in there, but it's not a huge driving factor that all the traffic is going down that street."
Anzaldua is hopeful that funding will become available to rebuild the roads in the future, but she says it would also create a Catch-22 of sorts.
"There's too much construction, but then we have a lot of bad roads all over the place too," she said laughing.
If you spot a pothole that needs to be patched, the city wants to hear from you. Just call 361-826-2489.
