MERIDIAN TOWNSHIP - Back in May, recommendations were made by the 2014 Local Roads Committee to the Township Board on which roads should be repaired this year.

And now, the 2014 Pavement Preservation Program is about to begin.

The Ingham County Road Department uses a road rating system software to look at which roads should be repaired first. They sent the Local Roads Committee a list of roads they felt were the highest priority and the Committee narrowed the list down to fit the budget.

The project is expected to begin late September and the Committee has decided on 12 local roads.

Roads Approved for Improvement in 2014:
-East & West Golfridge
-East & West Longview
-Westminister
-Benson
-Franklin
-Hallendale
-Banyon-Burcham
-Oakwood-Hillside
-Southport Circle
-Raleigh
-Sandlewood

Raymond Severy, Meridian Townships Director of Public Works and Engineering explains the construction process, "we use a different technique on those and we’ve used it for 3-4 years, it’s called Hot-In-Place Recycling. A company comes in and has large heaters on two different trucks, they heat the existing asphalt to soften it and the second machine loosens it up and the it goes through a screen that levels it out. So when we finish that it looks like a new street, but it leaves the pavement porous and water can get into it, so we come back and put about a new inch of new asphalt on top of everything.”

Severy says the Committee decided not to fix the worst roads in the Township first because there would not be enough money to fix the less damaged roads. The Committee looked at the roads that could be fixed most economically.

It will cost about $600,000 dollars to complete this project. Roads will not be fixed in a specific order, but this will be a month long process and construction is expected to end in late October.