SALISBURY — The Salisbury City Council approved Tuesday the awarding of an approximately $1 million contract to rehabilitate streets throughout the city.

The contract, which totaled $1,069,450, was awarded to J.T. Russell & Sons, who had submitted the lowest bid during the bidding process, said Public Works Director Chris Tester. That contract will provide for the repaving and thin lift of dozens of various streets throughout the city, including East Fisher Street, East Horah Street, East Franklin Street, North Church Street and many others. In total, approximately 8.4 miles of roadway would be affected by the contract, said Tester.

A thin lift is a preservation project where a three-quarter-inch pavement on top of the street asphalt is added in order to reset the degradation curve of a street, said Tester.

The bid includes the use of approximately 4,100 tons of S9-5B asphalt, 900 tons of S4.75A three-quarter-inch thin lift and the marking of the affected streets. The funding for the project was included in the current year’s budget. The project will begin work next year, said Tester.

Tester also noted that the city does not simply pick the streets in the worst shape when deciding which to work on.

“We just don’t go for the worst first. We actually work on some other streets and reset those degradation curves to keep the streets up to the standards that we’re looking for,” said Tester.

The streets that will be affected by the rehabilitation project are:

• Crenshaw Court
• Depot Street
• Drew Circle
• East Cemetery Street
• East Fisher Street
• East Franklin Street
• East Horah Street
• East Liberty Street
• East Seventeenth Street
• Fairson Avenue
• First Street
• Freedom Drive
• North Caldwell Street
• North Clay Street
• North Railroad Street
• Ryan Street
• Piper Lane
• South Craige Street
• Shamrock Drive
• West Cemetery Street
• West Colonial Drive
• Willow Street
• Winchester Avenue
• Woody Avenue
• Yost Circle

The streets that will be affected by the thin lift project are:

• Crawford Street
• East C Avenue
• East Council Street
• North Church Street
• Old South Main Street
• Overhill Drive
• Overhill Road
• Rugby Road

Mayor Karen Alexander asked about the city’s pavement conditioning survey, which was conducted in 2022 by TranSystems and laid out a five-year capital plan. Tester said that the city is currently in the fourth year of that plan and the Public Works department is currently working on issuing a Request for Qualifications to select an engineering firm to conduct the next five-year survey. That RFQ should be issued by October, he said, so that the city has an idea of the budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

Tester also noted that the city is at a 25-year cycle on the rehabilitation of its roads, which he said was a significant improvement from the previous 35- and 40-year cycles.

“That’s with escalated prices on materials, too. So those prices have increased in that time frame, so it’s a pretty big impact to be able to drop the years it takes to attend to a street,” he said.

After Tester’s presentation, the members of the city council voted unanimously to grant the contract to J.T. Russell & Sons.