The city of Denton is facing an expensive problem in many neighborhoods. Concrete streets are crumbling. Fixes have already cost more than four million dollars, and that number will only continue to rise.
Since the first week of April, the daily routine on Eagle Wing Lane has been a noisy one.
"Well, it's been a little hectic," said Charlene Myers. "We've had to wait at times to get in our driveways."
It's all happening right in front of Myers Denton home. Crews have been tearing up concrete street slabs and replacing them.
"We had a pothole, just around the corner at this bend," said Myers. "And it looked like a sinkhole."
Over the past two years, construction crews in Denton have replaced more than six miles worth of concrete roadway in neighborhoods. Something the city of Denton said wasn't supposed to happen for years.
"When you're talking about this type of failure, what you're talking about is a slab that breaks in half," said Todd Estes, city engineer. He said past standards for concrete weren't good enough. New slabs are required to be much thicker to hold up against shifting soil. The city of Denton is also hiring an engineering firm to help figure out how to repair and maintain those streets at a price of $173,000.
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"You can't go back, so you have to go forward and figure out what's the cause, so we don't have this happen again in the future," said Estes. "But then, how do we fix the ones we do have."
Myers found the news surprising. She said workers have tried to patch potholes in the past. She said those efforts were more a band-aid than a fix. She hopes this fix holds.
