Resurfacing has begun again on the streets of Jackson, beginning the second portion of the city’s “largest single-year resurfacing project.”

As the sunny weather rolls in, so rolls on the milling vehicles as crews work to mill and pave 45 streets throughout the city.

“We’re glad to be back on the road,” said Tom Wolf, city engineer. “Last fall we led a contract with Delta contractors, and had about 75-80 streets to be worked on. It was $3.1 million worth of bid items. The city gave me about $6 million to pave the roads. So we put the $3.1 million contract out, and then we made this secondary list to get more work done for the money.”

The 45 streets comprise the second half of the massive paving project that was passed in the summer of 2021. The first half, which ran from October to December, saw 43 streets paved before pausing for the winter.

“We spent about $1.7 to $1.8 million of the $3.1 million in the first half, so we still have about $1.3 million to go on that contract,” Wolf said.

Crews started milling Wednesday on Middle School Road in north Jackson, and will begin paving roads like University Parkway, Country Club Lane, East King Street and many more in the coming weeks.

This second portion of the project is expected to run until September 7th.

Roads to be paved are chosen based on the 2019 Paser test, which rated city roads on a scale of one to 10: one being the worst, and 10 being the best.

Of the approximately 200 roads in Jackson, 62 percent were rated above 5 on the Paser test, removing them from this paving project and leaving 38 percent of Jackson roads ready to be paved.

Of that 38 percent, 57 percent are rated two, 24 percent are rated one, 7 percent are combined rated five and four and 5 percent are rated three.

The order of which the roads are paved is essentially determined by three things: their size, their rating and their proximity to a “spine” road.

More:City paving project announces roads up for paving: How does your road rank?

Larger roads were completely earliest in the project, to allow Jackson Energy Authority and Stormwater Operations time to make necessary repairs back in the fall, according to Wolf.

Then, roads were chosen based on rating and the number of roads branching off of it—essentially, spine roads. Spine roads, Wolf explained, are major roads that were selected for paving because they are both major thoroughfares and touch numerous other roads—therefore cutting down on mobilization costs.

For example, multiple coves off of Old Hickory were paved at the beginning of the project in October. These coves, while not necessarily the most in-need streets, were done along with Old Hickory to get as much work done while the trucks were out there.

“If I have a spine that was low-grade, with coves on the edges, it makes sense to do it all at once,” Wolf explained. “(The Old Hickory coves) we did as many as possible, since we were already mobilized.”

Rising costs of oil and supplies are a hurdle Wolf has to constantly battle, he said, though the project has so far remained in budget.

Along with exorbitant costs of fuel for the trucks—lending credence to Wolf’s strategy of paving the spine roads—Wolf also explained that some roads will be delayed in being resurfaced due to repair costs.

A notable example: Briarleaf Boulevard in East Jackson.

“This street has a massive 72-foot-length, 96-inch-width corrugated metal pipe that needs to be replaced,” he said. “I am not keeping a corrugated metal pipe that big under a street, repaving it, and then ripping it up the next year when it fails.”

Wolf plans to replace the pipe with concrete, because 96-inch plastic pipes simply don’t exist.

“That’s a specialty pipe,” he said. “It’s just too big. We mostly use plastic pipes now, but they don’t make them that big… And it’s going to cost us a fortune.”

The pipe will cost $14,075 a foot—and due to the weight, trucks can only carry eight feet at a time from the pipe manufacturer in Atkins, Georgia.

“It’s $5.50 a mile, and its 192 miles,” he said. “So we need nine trucks to bring the pipe in, and we’re looking at well over $200,000 to fix 72 feet of pipe.”

While this is a more extreme case of the complicated steps involved in prioritizing road resurfacing, Wolf says issues like this arise all the time.

“That’s why we’re working to stay underbudget,” he said. “Stuff like this happens all the time. But we’re ready.”

Have a story to tell? Reach Angele Latham by email at alatham@gannett.com, by phone at 731-343-5212, or follow her on Twitter at @angele_latham.