At a meeting on May 5, Mayor Lester Miller recommended and the Commission approved Professional Paving Services to repave 16.34 miles of roads in Macon-Bibb County. Click here for a list of these roads.

“The quality of our roads has been one of the most talked about daily issues people in Macon-Bibb face the past few years, so we are making an historical investment in improving roads across the entire county,” says Mayor Lester Miller. “Since we began the Paving the Way program this past summer, people have noticed a marked improvement in their daily commutes.”

Since Paving the Way began in August, 885 segments of 351 streets totaling 117 miles have been repaved, with another 64.4 miles already identified and bid out for repaving. In previous years, only 7-8 miles per year were repaved per year.

Additionally, Macon-Bibb has worked directly with the Georgia Department of Transportation on getting the roads they maintain repaved, including Eisenhower Parkway and Mercer University Drive. So far 9.5 miles have been paved with another 23.3 miles in progress or soon to be started.

“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.

The contract for these 16.34 miles to be repaved is for $3,248,988.49, and it will be paid for from state Local Maintenance & Improvement Grant (LMIG) funds and voter-approved SPLOST funds. They were selected after an Invitation for Bid was posted on the County’s website and sent to 558 vendors. Six companies applied, and after the bid review, Professional Paving’s total bid was the lowest responsive and responsible submission.

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.

“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.