At a meeting on March 18, Mayor Lester Miller recommended and the Commission approved Professional Paving Services for another round of repaving some of the worst roads in Macon-Bibb County. They also approved additional roads for repaving and accepted state funding for the work.

Professional Paving was approved to repave 1.01 miles of Clinton Road, 1.84 miles of Upper River Road, 1.67 miles of Riggins Mill Road, and 0.97 miles of Millerfield Road, for a total of 5.49 miles. The contract is for $1,231,636.36 and is paid for with funds from the voter-approved 2025 SPLOST.

The Commission also approved 16 miles of additional roads to be repaved for $3,506,697.96 using a combination of state LMIG ($2,697,459.99) and local 2018 SPLOST ($809,237.97) funds. That list of roads will be put out to bid in the next several weeks. Click here to see full list of roads.

“The quality of our roads is one of the most talked about daily issues people in Macon-Bibb face, so we are making an historical investment in improving roads across the entire county,” says Mayor Lester Miller.

Since Paving the Way began in August, 648 segments of 303 streets totaling 80 miles have been repaved. More than 209 miles have been identified for repaving in this first year of Paving the Way. In previous years, only 7-8 miles per year were repaved per year.

“I’m proud of the collaborative work of our departments, partners, Commissioners, and public to identify the worst roads in the county, as well as the most well-travelled roads, so we can have the greatest positive impact on people’s daily lives,” says County Manager Dr. Keith Moffett.

About Paving the Way

Roads were identified through a scan of the more than 1,100 miles of county-owned and paved roads. Every road segment was rated on a scale of 1-100, and roads were selected for this list based on the following criteria:

• Roads rated 30 and below.
• Arterial and collector roads rated below 40.
• Connecting, nearby roads rated between 30 and 55.
• Well-trafficked roads in industrial areas.

Based on that criteria, 459 roads totaling almost 130 miles were identified in August and September. Earlier in the summer, an initial 36.18 miles of road were put out for bid for paving, making the total miles of road to be repaved in this round nearly 170 miles.

Additionally, Macon-Bibb has worked directly with the Georgia Department of Transportation on it paving the roads they maintain, including Eisenhower Parkway and Mercer University Drive. So far 9.5 miles have been paved with another 23.3 miles starting in the spring and summer.

With the original list of roads, the roads the GDOT is working on, and the new list approved by the Commission, a total of 209 miles of road are either repaved, being repaved, or are about to be repaved.

“We identified the worst roads in our community and are focusing first on them, as well as roads that are heavily traveled every day,” says Mayor Miller. “There isn’t a part of our county that won’t have major improvements for daily travel.”

Funding for this work comes from the voter-approved Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) and state Local Maintenance & Improvement Grant (LMIG) funds.

In the first round of Paving the Way, nearly $15 million was allocated from the general fund, SPLOST, and LMIG. The amount allocated in the first round was already nearly five times more than used in previous years. Between 2020 and now, the County repaved 45.539 miles of road.