STARKVILLE — A proposed $3.5 million road plan for this year could net 40 more cumulative years of lifespan to city roads.
City Engineer Cody Burnett said he’s ready to put the plan into action.
At Friday’s aldermen work session, Burnett presented a draft list of about 45 priority roads to work on in 2024. Repairs range from major overlays to minor maintenance.
The long-term goal is to bring bad roads up to good condition while preserving better roads before they deteriorate. Over time, the entire road system will be improved while the city’s road maintenance costs shrink.
Last year, aldermen approved a partnership with Southaven-based Civil-Link to assess the condition of every road in the city. Each road was assigned a 1 to 10 rating for each 50-foot segment. A score of 1 designates a road in need of total repair, while a 10 describes a road in pristine condition.
The study’s results were presented in January, and Starkville’s average road score was 5.5.
Burnett’s draft list is based on Civil-Link’s assessment and includes the section of road in need of repair, the road’s score and the recommended work type. For example, a section of Goldfinch Lane has a score of 1 and is recommended for asphalt overlay.
Burnett said of the $3.5 million total estimated cost to repair all roads on this year’s list, about $2.4 million is for major and minor asphalt overlays as well as patching.
The remaining $1.1 million is for preservation methods like microsurfacing, a thin, tough layer of asphalt emulsion blended with finely crushed stone. Burnett said microsurfacing can add between 8 to 10 years to a road’s lifespan.
“It looks like asphalt. It feels like asphalt,” Burnett said. “When you walk on it, you really can’t tell it’s not asphalt, but it’s really thin.”
Other repair methods include fog sealing and ultra-thin asphalt. These methods, Burnett said, will be cheaper than relying on traditional asphalt to solve every road’s problem.
He said Starkville has 315 lane-miles of road to maintain. This year’s road plan, if approved, would add 355 years road life – a net gain of 40 when considering annual deterioration.
By including preservation methods, Burnett said the city should get all of its roads in good condition over the next 10 years.
“If we do this, all the roads will get better, and then you can spend less money each year and get the same quality of road,” he said.
Aldermen have the authority, granted two years ago, to issue up to $5 million in bonds to pay for the project. Those present agreed to put the bond issue on its consent agenda for Tuesday’s meeting, meaning it can be approved without further discussion. Aldermen will also consider the draft road list Tuesday.
Ward 2 Alderwoman Sandra Sistrunk told the board she is looking forward to the project.
“I’m very excited about this as a way to preserve and enhance our roads,” she said. “Do the milling and overlay where it’s appropriate, but doing just routine maintenance on other places. … I think in neighborhoods is where we’re really going to see bang for our buck because we’re going to be able to do more.”
Ward 3 Alderman Jeffrey Rupp, Ward 5 Alderman Hamp Beatty and Ward 7 Alderman Henry Vaughn told The Dispatch following the meeting they also think the plan is viable.
“I think having alternatives to the expense of traditional paving is certainly worth trying,” Rupp said. “I think it’ll make the dollars go a lot further. Based on what I saw today, it looks like it will extend the life of the roads. I’m all for trying it. I’m really looking forward to seeing how it all plays out.”
Beatty said he is “all for it.”
“It looks like to me that instead of just overlaying every street, we’ll be able to go in and determine which ones need overlay, which ones need this micro-treatment and different methods like that which could potentially save us some money and get us to where the condition of our streets ought to be more economically,” he said.
Kevin Edwards is news editor and reports on Starkville and Oktibbeha County government.
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