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City Council Survey Highlights Residents’ Concerns for Columbia

The Columbia City Council voted to keep taxi stands on local streets.
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The Columbia City Council voted to keep taxi stands on local streets.

Columbia City Council released its eighth annual DirectionFinder survey that details Columbia residents’ satisfaction and concerns of city services from the past year.

The survey showed satisfaction with the city’s sidewalks are up by 8 percent compared to the last year’s survey. However, satisfaction with the city’s streets are down by 8 percent.

“We understand that some streets are in better condition than others and there’s only so many streets we can do a year,” Public Works Information Officer Barry Dalton said. “We’re hoping to maximize resources and do even more streets every year. But as in everything – it depends on the budget and resources.”

Dalton said Columbia has a street management program where a street is rated by a “pacer” scale. The rating of the street determines whether they need to be maintained or require improvement. The management program also helps prevent streets falling into the extreme end of the pacer scale.

Dalton said the Public Work Department performed maintenance on over 30 streets over spring to raise their rank in the pacer scale. He said it was a cost effective method of keeping the streets in a satisfying condition.

“We take the survey very seriously,” he said. “It affirms what we already believe and that is to continually maintain and improve the streets.”

Satisfaction over the city’s cleaning services is up by 4 percent compared to the previous year.

“When I see the city,” Columbia resident Miranda Craig said, “[I see] lots of efforts at keeping everything clean and having recycling spaces. I really appreciate how Columbia kind of goes out of its way – especially downtown to keep everything looking neat.”

The survey listed four overall priorities residents’ believed the city council should have: public safety services, city utility services, condition of the city’s streets and solid waste services. These were the same priorities rated in last year’s survey.