Though Third Street is a state road and is not maintained by the city of Danville, City Engineer Josh Morgan said it was one road the city got a lot of complaints about due to potholes that had formed. Each time, the city passed the message along to the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet.

“So finally they reached out to us a week or two ago” that the state would make repairs, Morgan said.

The city itself also has several road projects planned in the upcoming months.

For Third Street, he said the KYTC took it upon themselves to get repairs done.

“The local office — they’re local people that know the problems here and hear the same complaints and understand that things need to be repaired, so they were probably tired of patching those potholes themselves,” he said.

All winter long, they’d receive complaints and patch potholes with cold asphalt mix because due to the cold weather they didn’t have hot mix asphalt yet. The ice storm also exacerbated issues with the road because potholes can form as ice freezes and expands on roads, breaking asphalt apart. Then they’d come right back a few weeks later and do it again because issues kept arising, Morgan said.

So really, redoing the road is a long-term way to save money — to do one larger repair rather than “piecemeal maintenance” over and over again, Morgan said.

Morgan said on Friday that he thinks repairs on the road will begin in the next week or two.

Planned repairs for Third Street are to remove the base beneath the asphalt and reconstruct it, then resurface the road, which Morgan said is a “pretty common practice.”

“When something is failing that badly, it’s not about the asphalt,” he said. “It’s about what’s beneath the asphalt that’s holding it up.”

Another major repair coming to a road is an upcoming repaving project on Stanford Avenue. Morgan said the area in front of the Dollar General near the post office is a space that “stays” in “rough shape” and will be addressed. He said this project will likely happen in the next month or two. As part of the project, crosswalk ramps are being updated, including one on the corner of Stanford Avenue and Walnut Street.

As for city projects, Morgan explained how the city will utilize its municipal road aid funds. He said this year the city anticipates the municipal road aid budget will be approximately $300,000, and the money can be used on road improvements. The city receives a monthly check for the funds from the Kentucky State Treasurer. Primarily the city uses these funds to pave streets, fix potholes and general maintenance.

“I’ve kind of heard loud and clear from folks so far that potholes are a concern,” he said. “A lot of our main, current issues are on state roads, which we can’t repair those — those are left to the Transportation Cabinet to repair.”

General feedback from the community also includes that the city needs to focus on raising manhole lids, something Morgan said will be in the works and can happen on all streets, including state roads if needed and will be “an ongoing project that will last several months.”

Morgan said the low manhole lids can happen when paving has previously been done on roads that have manholes and the lids weren’t raised at the time of repaving.

Another undertaking the city is investing the funds in is repaving Cunningham Way and Kim Avenue, which will cost approximately $94,310 from the municipal aid fund budget. The city is contracting the work with the Allen Company using their KYTC Master Agreement, and a resolution on the city commission agenda to go forward with repaving was approved unanimously April 26.

Morgan said these two roads are perhaps the worst city roads he knows of currently that need to be repaved. He said they were built about 25 years ago and are due to be repaired, and they don’t have a good crown in the center of them, meaning they’re quite flat. Water can pool in the middle of the roads, freeze and thaw and cause problems, he said.

“We’re going to add a crown to those streets when we repave them this time, and hopefully they last a little longer,” Morgan said.

To report issues with city roads to the city of Danville, use the city’s app, downloadable for iOS and Android. The app is labeled “Danville KY” on the App Store and Google Play.