MORGANTOWN – Between the delayed 2025 paving project currently in progress and the 2026 contract recently approved by Morgantown City Council, the city is looking to resurface more than 11 miles of municipal-owned streets this calendar year.
In November, council approved a $955,938 contract with Parrotta Paving to address about six miles of roadway, including the reconstruction of North High Street.
That work began earlier this year and is about 70% complete according to Engineering and Public Works Director Damien Davis.
Signs posted along Pennsylvania Avenue indicate paving was scheduled to begin there on Tuesday, but rain in the forecast delayed the start of that work.
As Parrotta paves through the remainder of its project list, Anderson Excavating is gearing up to begin a second round of roadwork.
A $758,301.25 contract was approved by Morgantown City Council last week to pave approximately 5.6 miles of city streets grouped in the Suncrest, upper Sunnyside, Jerome Park, Norwood and upper South Park/Hopecrest areas.
Davis explained the city is focusing on grouping projects in a handful of specific areas in an effort to maximize efficiency.
“Recently, last year and this year, we’re kind of breaking it into little areas. One, to help bring the cost down. It makes it easier for [the contractor] to do a little area, then move and do another little area instead of jumping all over the place,” he said. “So we’ve been trying to concentrate on paving in certain areas.”
The city’s annual paving efforts are funded through the $3 weekly Safe Streets & Safe Communities Municipal Fee, or user fee, collected from the paychecks of every person working within Morgantown’s municipal boundaries.
In the current fiscal year, the fee is expected to generate about $4.125 million, with 29%, or $1.2 million, earmarked for street paving, improvements and maintenance.
When the fee took effect in January 2016, it was anticipated the significant jump in the available paving budget would allow the city to pave every city-maintained street – approximately 100 miles total – every 10 years or so.
But as costs continue to rise, that timeline grows longer.
Prior to the start of the delayed 2025 project currently underway, the city had paved just over 50 miles in seven user fee-funded paving projects between 2017 and 2024. There was no paving in 2020 due to COVID.
Looking forward, Davis said the city anticipates paving between five and six miles annually for the next five years.
“With this pace, if we keep this pace up, that’s about 5% of our streets, so over the next five years, we’re looking at doing a quarter of our streets, which puts us on about a 20-year rotation, give or take,” he said.
