City Council approves roads for new mill and overlay program

City leaders are preparing for a new round of mill and overlay work as they continue plans to upgrade city streets.

Members of the City Council signed off on 24 new road projects Tuesday, $6.6 million worth of work that is being analyzed and prepped even as the city completes the final 15 projects under the “Ten Wins” program. The concept is simple: identify roads that can be upgraded through mill and overlay, a process that grinds off the top layer of asphalt, then replaces it with a fresh layer. Ward 4 Councilman George Gill, chairman of the council’s Streets and Bridges Committee, said the result is a road with eight years of additional life, at significantly less cost than rebuilding it.

Not every road in Lawton is a candidate, which is why roads identified for the mill and overlay program — 40 almost completed and 24 new ones — come from a pavement analysis done in 2022 by Infrastructure Management Services and re-affirmed by engineers, streets employees and consulting engineering firm WSB.

“This is the list we came up with,” Gill said, of sites that range from a section of West Gore Boulevard between Northwest 17th Street and Fort Sill Boulevard, to residential streets such as Motif Manor Boulevard and Northeast Dunlop Street.

The streets selected for More Roads for ’24, recommended by the Streets and Bridges Committee last week, will join the list of other streets upgraded via mill and overlay: 10 completed in late 203, 15 more earlier this year and 15 new streets now underway by T&G Construction.

The committee’s recommendation went to the council contingent upon funding being identified. While city leaders have some funding identified for a portion of the $6.6 million estimated cost, City Manager John Ratliff said the full amount is “subject to what happens to the CIP.” The Capital Improvements Program Extension being presented to city voters Aug. 27 includes creation of a permanent quarter-cent allocation restricted to road, street and bridge work.

Gill said while the city can’t move forward with the actual work until the full funding is identified, city officials can put the pieces into place so they can move to the construction bidding phase as soon as funding is in hand.

Gill said streets are selected for the mill and overlay program deliberately, with priority given to the condition of the road and how heavily streets are used. While the new list includes at least one project in each of the city’s eight council wards, location within a ward is a secondary consideration, he said.

While the project’s main focus is mill and overlay, some of the streets will have concrete panels repaired before that is done, said Public Works Director Michael Watrous. He said city officials already know five of the first eight projects will have panel replacement work, including West Gore Boulevard.

Gill said mill and overlay is a technique that has proven successful, at a significant cost savings. Earlier this year, the committee recommended that a rebuild project planned for Southwest 38th Street between West Gore Boulevard and Bishop Road be changed to mill and overlay. City engineers said the road is suitable for that type of repair, and Gill said the change reduced what could have been a $27 million reconstruction project to $6 million for mill and overlay.