MILTON — Cedar, Cyprus, Hickory, Lee, Orange and Pecan Street residents are experiencing a smoother drive following those roads’ resurfacing.
As part of a 10-year plan, the City Council recently approved resurfacing two groups of roadways. City staffers decided to group streets that needed resurfacing as opposed to addressing one street at a time.
Work on the first group — almost 2 miles of resurfacing — cost less than $150,000. Most of it is complete, with only sewer main connection work left, according to Public Works Director George Rials.
The second group of city streets includes the Starhill neighborhood of Andromeda, Vega and Polaris drives. Rials said the work should cost around $75,000 to resurface.
City contractor Panhandle Grading & Paving Inc. worked on the first group of streets. A recently passed gas tax revenue paid for the improvements, according to Milton City Manager Brian Watkins. Through state-shared revenue, the gas tax funding is dispersed to each county in the state and, from there, to each municipality.
“When we took those monies, we dedicated it to road paving,” Watkins said. “One of our capital improvement lines is a road-paving line and all of that money goes into that.”
Rials said most roads listed in need are in residential areas.
“Those are prioritized based on population served,” Rials said. “We use the Bureau of Economic statistics (with) the University of Florida that says there (are) two and a half people on average in a household, so we multiply by the number of houses and we said that is the population served.”
Another factor in prioritizing projects is the road’s condition.
Rials said the city should have enough funding to work on the next group of streets by next June.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: 6 streets' resurfacing completed