The city of Kosciusko’s paving project continues as more streets are being paved.
Two streets were recently added to the project — East and West Adams streets.
The project got underway with the streets being milled. Many of the streets were quarter milled, which means the sides of the streets were milled rather than the whole street.
“If you mill a whole road, it costs just as much to pave, and so our engineers looked at that and the places where we could quarter mill, and that’s what we’ve done,” said Mayor Tim Kyle.
“Usually where you see that we’ve done that we have a curb and gutter, so we mill along that.”
By milling now, Kyle said, in the future when one of these streets needs to be paved, it will not need to be milled again.
After the streets were milled, workers began searching for any soft spots, or places where the soil is softer, in the roads to repair. They have been digging the soft spots out, and packing them with a hard material, so the roads will have a better foundation, which will provide a smoother road.
“We’re trying to fix our roadbed as best we can so that when we get through, we have a better product,” said Kyle.
During this process, the city has repaired several culverts and Kosciusko Water and Light has replaced some water valves that were not working as efficiently.
“We’re trying to repair everything that we can while we’re doing this,” said Kyle.
Some have asked why the roads have not been paved right after being milled.
Kyle said the city is using one contracted crew to do the work — milling, repairing soft spots and paving. It would have taken three crews to do all of the work at the same time, which would have cost more money, and the city would not have been able to include as many streets in the project.
“The way we’re doing it we’re getting a lot more streets paved for the same money,” he said. “Having to pay extra crews to come, we wouldn’t have gotten as many streets paved. We’re trying to be as frugal as we can with our dollar to try to get as much as we can.”
The project cost about $3.7 million, and $3.2 is being funded through a bond. The rest of the funds come from money collected through the Mississippi Infrastructure Modernization Act of 2018, which diverts 35% of the 7% use tax for internet and out-of-state sales to local governments to be used for infrastructure repairs. The additional money allowed for East and West Adams to be added to the project.
“We’re getting a lot of streets paved,” said Kyle. “We have a lot of streets that need paving but we’re trying to pave all the major cross streets that go through town that everybody uses.”
For future projects, the city will be looking at residential streets that need to be paved.
One of the city’s roughest streets will not be included in this project.
“Gilliland Street is the worst street in Kosciusko,” said Kyle.
The street was part of an urban renewal project in the 1970s. It’s a wide concreted street, and Kyle said not much preparation work went into the roadbed.
“That concrete is all broken and sank. The engineers say that the only way we can fix Gilliland is if we bust all of the concrete up, take it all out, remove all the soil underneath it, put a new roadbed there, and then pave it,” he said.
For the one street that is less than a mile, the cost to repair it is $2.1 million — over half of how much the city is spending to pave multiple streets.
The mayor has applied again this year for a federal RAISE grant through the U.S. Department of Transportation. Kyle said he has received multiple letters of support from state and federal officials.
“I think we have a better application this year,” he said. “I’m hoping we can get this grant. If we do, that will be the next big project that we do.”
Winners will be announced later this year.
The paving project was set to begin last year but had to be delayed because of an asphalt shortage in the area.
“We’ve had a hard time getting enough asphalt,” said Kyle.
Recently, rather than continuing to do soft spot repairs, the crew began paving roads that will be used during the Natchez Trace Festival this week.
“I was worried if we kept continuing the spot work we might not have enough asphalt to pave the streets right around the square,” said Kyle. “The Canton plant has assured our contractor that hopefully in a week and a half he can get all he wants.”
Streets that are included in the project are East Adams, West Adams, Aponaug Road, Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Wells Street, Maple Street, South Street (West Jefferson to Tipton), Love Road, South and North Natchez, Jackson Street (from the square to Mississippi 12), Jefferson (Wells Street to the square), Madison (Adams Street to the square), College Street, Smythe Street, Valley Road, Second Avenue and Fourth Avenue.
