Toledo municipal government’s latest plan for addressing the city’s streets issue is like getting dinner at a fast-food drive-through — it’s not good, but it’s better than nothing.

And for the last several years, the plan for the streets has pretty much been: nothing.

It’s not good that the $7 million budget for repaving comes in part from a debt-restructuring plan that will result in higher future payments on that debt. But it is good that the city is finally investing in substantive street repair rather than relying on the mill-and-fill strategy it’s used exclusively for several years.

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The less-expensive method of street maintenance has allowed the city to at least improve some residential streets in terrible shape, but because mill-and-fill work — which the city plans to spend another $500,000 on this year too — doesn’t last as long as more substantial repaving, it will end up costing Toledo more in the long run.

Still, some city council members have complained about the relatively few street miles in each of their districts slated for repaving this year. Councilman Matt Cherry said each district was only getting “peanuts,” and he’s not wrong. But in previous years, they weren’t even getting peanuts.

The city needs to do much better at taking care of its residential streets. And city government must stop relying on debt-restructuring maneuvers and dipping into the Capital Improvement Plan funds to pay for such projects. Toledo has long needed a strategy and a funding mechanism for rebuilding our streets and then doing ongoing street maintenance. We need a real, sustainable, long-term streets plan.

Meanwhile, if the city can magically “find” $7 million, it’s good to spend it on one of the city’s biggest needs — our crumbling streets.

First Published March 18, 2017, 4:00 a.m.