Ferndale to improve 6.6 miles of roads in 2024

FERNDALE — Ferndale’s road improvements will continue this spring with the city’s 2024 pavement improvement program.

The Ferndale City Council approved a contract with Al’s Asphalt to continue the city’s pavement work this year for $3,603,824.

According to Department of Public Works Director James Jameson, the project has seen approximately 80% of streets replaced.

“We have roughly 20% left to do and then we would have from now until potentially 2030 and 2035, at which point we would need to start doing them again,” he said.

Construction this year will include approximately 6.6 miles of work on residential streets, Jameson stated.

“The street repairs include curb and gutter repairs, some drainage, (Americans with Disabilities Act) ramps, and pavement markings on all of these streets,” he said.

The last road bond was passed by voters in 2015. As this is the ninth year of a 10-year program, the road replacement project is expected to be completed next year.

“The useful service life of asphalt is about 15 to 20 years for roads,” Jameson said. “We did (a bond) in 2015. We should be complete around 2025, and then we would expect to do (a bond) again somewhere between 2030 and 2035 for all roads.

The current tentative schedule for the work to begin is around April 15 and, by Sept. 4, all work on the roads should be completed.

Some long stretches of roads scheduled for improvements include Wanda Street between Eight Mile and Nine mile roads and East Breckenridge Street between Hilton Road and Interstate 75.

The entire road schedule will be posted to giffelswebster.com/ferndale-construction-schedule closer to the start of construction.

“A lot of these streets are ones that we did the lead line replacement on,” Council member Greg Pawlica said. ”So they’ve been torn up for this year because of that program and now they’re going to be repaved.”

The city also gave an update on its lead service line replacements, something all communities are required to do under the state’s lead and copper rule. According to the city, approximately $3 million was spent in 2023 on lead service line replacement, which saw 501 lines replaced.