The 2013 repaving blitz in Lexington is just about finished. City planners realized they had fallen behind in recent years and needed to play catch-up.
Six months ago, city planners say Lexington’s streets needed about 27-million dollars in work. It kept paving crews out in large numbers throughout the spring and summer. Now, with the season nearly complete, Administrative Officer in Environmental Quality Kevin Wente says they’ve addressed nearly 40% of Lexington’s paving needs.
“We had an assessed need of about 27 million within out city maintained roads that were in need of repair and by tackling that with two to three million dollars every year, we just weren’t getting ahead of the game. We were always behind, in fact, getting worse,” said Wente.
Wente adds the repaving effort was city wide, with no one area receiving special treatment. Council spent 13 million dollars on resurfacing roads. Council member Diane Lawless is thrilled with the progress...
“I just want to say it’s been the greatest paving year of my life,” said Lawless.
Wente says the work went smoothly and quickly as a result of good communication. He says they quickly resolved any problems concerning traffic congestion and utility lines.