The Marietta Public Works Department began a resurfacing project on Polk Street and Kennesaw Avenue today. The project will be be completed by July 2, weather permitting.

Polk Street will be resurfaced from Cleburne Avenue to Burnt Hickory Road, and the Kennesaw Avenue work will be between Church Street and Tower Road.

The plan is to complete the Polk Street work during the Marietta City School Systmem spring break, and overtime to make that deadline is expected.

The public announcement for the work states that there will be traffic back-ups and delays, but the city will have flaggers stationed. Once Polk Street is resurfaced, the crews will move to Kennesaw Avenue and complete that section.

The city website explains why those particular roads were chosen, and where the funds come from as follow:

How does the City select roads to be repaved? Each street is evaluated and assigned a rating based upon the condition of the street by an outside independent consultant. This condition is called a pavement value index (PVI). The higher this rating (worse condition of the street) means the street is placed on the list for resurfacing. Once we have the list completeHow does the City select roads to be repaved? Each street is evaluated and assigned a rating based upon the condition of the street by an outside independent consultant. This condition is called a pavement value index (PVI). The higher this rating (worse condition of the street) means the street is placed on the list for resurfacing. Once we have the list completed, we then look for the highest rated streets and make a final list based upon the budget (how much we can afford a year).d, we then look for the highest rated streets and make a final list based upon the budget (how much we can afford a year).

Each year we are awarded funds from the Georgia Department of Transportation called Local Maintenance and Improvement Grant (LMIG) funds for street resurfacing. These funds are usually around $500,000 or so each year. We choose the streets that we can resurface with these funds from the final list and based upon cost (that we can fund from this program). This year those streets are the ones referenced above.

Both roads will have the the following work performed:

•    Milling 

•    Patching 

•    New asphalt topping 

•    New radius cuts ( only on Polk)

•    New striping 

•    Raise grate inlets, manholes, and water valves as needed