Lexington to repair failing roads in nearly 20 neighborhoods. How much will it cost?
Lexington will spend almost $4 million to repave over eight miles of failing roads across the town, the first time the town has addressed many of the roads in over a decade.
The town will use $890,000 set aside in the current budget towards the $3.9 million project which will repair and resurface all roads in town limits that have failing road safety grades. The other funds will be set aside in the upcoming budget – either by allocating existing funds or taking on debt.
The hope is for the repavings to begin over the summer, Transportation Director Randy Edwards told the town council at a March 3 meeting. Following the council’s unanimous approval of the plan at that meeting, Lexington will soon select contractors, who will have around 6-9 months to complete the work, Edwards said.
Roads in nearly 20 neighborhoods across Lexington, including Martins Grove, Creekside Farms and Woodcreek, will be repaired through the project. The project will not involve repaving every road in those neighborhoods, but will address problematic spots throughout each neighborhood.
The town maintains 33 miles of roads and even though the project will be the biggest resurfacing lift in over a decade, Lexington still makes periodic repairs as needed, Mayor Hazel Livingston noted during the March 3 meeting.
The last time the town spent any significant chunk of change on repairing failing roads was in 2013, when it repaved 7.5 miles of road. Historically, the town has waited until roads are noticeably dilapidated, leaning on a grading system that gives D and F grades to stretches of pavement that are in bad shape, before setting aside the money to repair them. All of the roads the town will repave as a part of this project have received either a D or an F grade for issues like substantial potholes or pavement failure.
Moving forward, though, Edwards said he’d like to see more preventative measures taken to keep the roads in good shape for longer and so that the town doesn’t have to revisit failing roads every few years.
“We need to keep up with the pavement as it ages,” Edwards told The State. “Instead of just waiting until it’s time for surgery, let’s go to the gym, let’s eat healthy.”
After the project is completed, members of the town council want to create a preventative maintenance plan to address issues with the roads on a more regular basis.
“I think it’s inherent upon us to come up with a routine maintenance schedule so that we’re able to take smaller bites away at making improvements to roads so that we’re not having to come back every 10 or 15 years and do this. [Instead] we’re making marginal improvements year over year so that our roads never get to Ds or Fs,” Councilman Gavin Smith told The State.
Here’s a list of neighborhoods that will see repairs to roads in the coming months:
Lexington Heights
Martins Grove
Creekside Farms
Huntington Ridge
Church Street Commons
Mallard Hills/Lakes
Coventry Lake
Ivy Park
Woodcreek
Corley Woods
Laurel Wood
Heritage Hills 707-805
Bent Creek
Hunters Ridge
Bent Creek Plantation
Garden Place
Cherry Ridge
Whiteford Lakes
This story was originally published March 13, 2025 at 12:29 PM.
