STATESBORO, Ga. — In a historic milestone for Statesboro, every road within the city limits is now fully paved, marking the end of an era for the local road network. This achievement comes after the recent completion of the Anderson Street Paving Project, which transformed the final 385-foot stretch of dirt road into a modern, paved thoroughfare.

Brad Deal, the city’s director of public works and engineering, expressed satisfaction with the completion of this long-standing goal. “It was a significant objective to ensure that all roads within the city are paved,” Deal stated. He noted that while some one-way alleyways remain unpaved, Anderson Street was the last dirt road among two-way streets in the city.

The paving of Anderson Street had been on the city’s agenda for over a decade, but budget constraints delayed its realization. Deal credited the introduction of the Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (TSPLOST), a one-penny sales tax, as a crucial element that facilitated the funding and advancement of such infrastructure projects.

Deal clarified there were some one-way alleyways still unpaved, but as for two-way streets, Anderson Street was the last dirt road inside city limits.

Deal also told that the road was actually planned to be paved over 10 years ago, but had been delayed due to the funding. He attributed the introduction of the one-penny sales tax, known as TSPLOST, as a factor in helping move projects along.

“Before the city had TSPLOST we really didn’t have a great mechanism to fund some of these projects,” Deal said. “We were only able to usually resurface around a mile or two, sometimes maybe three miles or streets a year, and now with TSPLOST, we can usually do at least double that amount.”

The city also recently completed its FY2024 Street Resurfacing Project.

“We just completed resurfacing of about five miles of streets in the city,” Deal said about the project. “We’ve got plans to do a couple of major routes through the city on the next round, which will happen early next year. One of those will be Zetterower Avenue.”

Deal said now that the city has accomplished its goal of making sure all roads inside the city are paved, it will turn its sights to keeping up with growth.

“We’re planning to put it towards a lot of capacity improvements we need to make,” he said. “In other words, roads and intersections that have a lot of traffic congestion. We’ve got plans to make some improvements at several locations. The city is experiencing a lot of growth right now, and so we have a lot of projects that are aimed to address that growth.”