Milling begins on Main Street

Continuing with a trend over recent years, Highlands public works director Lamar Nix unveiled an ambitious paving plan for the upcoming 2021-22 fiscal year during the board of commissioners retreat on Thursday.

Nix began his presentation by highlighting Spring Street, which was part of the paving plan for the current fiscal year but was moved back due to the cost of the project.

“Spring Street is one that we have talked about for the past two years and it still needs repaved,” Nix said. “Of the roads on this list it is the most expensive at $180,000 so it takes some planning both in the budget and in terms of the timing of the work to be done.”

Next on Nix’ list of roads in need of paving were Upper Lake Road at a cost of $85,000, Sherwood Forest Road at a cost of $120,000 and Lower Lake road at a cost of $135,000. Also up for the board of commissioners’ consideration were Old Walhalla Road ($47,000), Warren Road ($20,000), Maney Road ($135,000), Gibson Road ($60,000), Cullasaja Drive Extension ($52,000) and Talley Road ($50,000).

“We have been pretty aggressive as a town with our paving program over the past two or three years and there is still a lot more work to be done,” Mayor Patrick Taylor said. “With the work the state is doing in and around Highlands this spring, it makes sense that we continue to do our part and make our roads as safe and as pleasing to drive as they can be.”

North Carolina Department of Transportation crews began paving Main Street on Monday. Each block of Main Street will be closed for approximately 24 hours, depending on weather. Milling will be done at night and the milled area will be repaved the following day, beginning with the block from NC 106 to 2nd Street and moving east toward 5th Street.

The final day of scheduled milling and repaving is scheduled to be March 25 when the area from Main Street to Spring Street on US 64 will be repaved.

After Main Street is repaved, NCDOT crews will move on to US 64 and NC 28. The paving of those roads will be done in a more traditional one-lane format with traffic being controlled through the paving area via flag operators.

“When you look at the whole project, which will last into the summer, it covers the three busiest streets in town,” Taylor said. “All of them are in serious need of resurfacing and we are very thankful for the work the DOT is doing and how they are handling the process.”

Along with Nix’ repaving request, he attached three stretches of sidewalk that he would like the town to replace in the upcoming 2021-22 budget. A section along 4th Street near the intersection of Martha’s Lane would cost roughly $95,000, while the sidewalk on Main Street in front of First Presbyterian Church would come with a $70,000 price tag and an addition of sidewalk near the intersection of US 64 and Poplar Street would cost $50,000.

“I don’t know if we will be able to do all of these this year or not, but the areas I am proposing for sidewalk replacement or construction are areas of need that we have identified,” Nix said. “We are in the process of replacing the sidewalk in front of Reeve’s (Ace Hardware) and it will be a big improvement once its finished.”