Plan calls for Wichita to spend $31 million paving dirt roads over the next 10 years

The city of Wichita will spend $1 million paving dirt roads around schools in 2023.

The City Council on Tuesday approved year one of a 10-year capital improvement plan to fund $31 million of paving projects near schools and in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Public Works and Utilities Director Alan King said 160 of the 5,100 lane miles managed by his department are dirt roads.

“We have these islands within the city, within neighborhoods, of unpaved roads,” King told council members. “The historical approach to this has been to have petitions circulated and then the cost of those streets are borne by the people on that street.”

That petition process can be contentious and cumbersome, Plainview Neighborhood Association President Chauncey Kemp told The Eagle in June. Several years ago, he organized a petition asking the city to lay new asphalt and gravel in Planeview cul-de-sacs.

“They came out to a meeting and told us that they could do that but in order for them to do that cost-effective, we would have to put our property on a levy at eight grand — I think it was $8,600 bucks, each piece of property at $8,600 bucks in order for them to do it,” Kemp said.

King said the 10-year city paving initiative will remove those barriers for neighborhoods that have been unable or unwilling to bear the cost of modernizing roads. Each year of the plan will have to be approved by the City Council.

The top priority, King said, is paving dirt streets within approximately a block of schools that currently receive chemical dust suppression treatments from the city.

After that, the focus will switch to roads in neighborhoods with the highest percentage of residents living below the poverty line based on U.S. Census data.

The dirt streets in question will be paved with a five-inch-thick asphalt mat but they won’t include a curb, gutter or subsurface drainage, he said.

“It still gives you a really good street, a serious street, but because of the lack of drainage, it will shorten a little bit the life of the street,” King said. The newly paved streets will have a lifespan of 15 to 20 years.

District 5 council member Bryan Frye asked if there will be an option for neighborhoods to opt out of city-funded paving projects.

“In my district, there are a couple of areas where there are unpaved roads and they prefer that because it keeps the speed down,” Frye said.

City Manager Robert Layton said staff will determine a mechanism for such neighborhoods to refuse the city’s paving projects.