Waterloo Lane at Centerville just days before it reopened after being repaved in 2018 for $2.5 million in gas tax money.
Photo by Kurt Hildebrand.
About every decade or so, Douglas County does a self-examination on the road issue, and that’s certainly not limited to the 21st Century. The subhead on the main story on the front page of the July 22, 1904, edition of The Record-Courier said Douglas “Can now boast of the worst roads in the State of Nevada.”
The Carson Appeal exaggerated that the county’s roads were “composed mostly of holes and dust,” at the time.
“Probably the worst piece of road on earth is between this city and Gardnerville,” the Appeal said. “In the winter, it is axle deep in mud and in the summer the dust and chuck holes are enough to scare … a man from a rig.”
That road would end up being Highway 395 and its maintenance turned over to the state.
At last week’s workshop, the county laid bare the issues related to roads. The news wasn’t all bad. The county has spent $23 million on regional roads over the past 11 years and the backlog on that front is down to $13 million.
According to then presentation, residents pay an average of $61 a year in property taxes for regional road maintenance.
When asked about local roads though, the response was “ugh.”
Roughly two-thirds of the county’s residents live in one of the towns or general improvement districts where their property taxes go to specifically pay for road maintenance and construction.
That distinction is particularly important for residents of Johnson Lane and Ruhenstroth, because the roads in those and other communities without a district or homeowners association are the county’s responsibility and have been scientifically determined to be some of the worst in the county.
So even asking the question whether those residents should subsidize the other third is yet another piece of the puzzle. Certainly, when the county has asked voters whether they want to increase taxes to pay for roads, the answer has been a resounding “No.”
It is telling that the only measure to pay for roads approved over the last 35 years, was when county commissioners approved the nickel gas tax in 2015, after it had twice been defeated at the ballot box.