The New Iberia City Council got the ball rolling on a new slate of road improvement projects that will become noticeable in the coming months. 

The council unanimously approved awarding a project to Glenn Lege Construction for asphalt reconstruction of various streets in New Iberia. The contract will be the first of three the city awards for road improvements thanks to local residents voting to rededicate funding from sewer debt to road repairs last year. 

The project is being led by engineering firm Berard, Habetz & Associates, whose representative John Charpentier estimated about 30 days before the project should begin to start moving in earnest. 

“A lot of these roads haven’t been touched in 30 to 40 years,” Charpentier said. “Most of these roads are well past their life span.”

The city only received one bidder for the project, with Charpentier saying that there many local projects dedicated to road improvements right now. 

Asphalt reconstruction targets roads that have to be reconstructed from the base up, which generally requires more work from contractors. The council is set to award a contract for the second phase of the road work, which is concrete overlay, in the coming weeks. Following that project, asphalt patching overlay will be next. Charpentier said that project will be the largest by far, while the first phase will mostly be dealing with secondary roads. 

In other business, the council awarded a contract to Southern Constructors for the PepperPlex Access Road Project. 

That project will add a secondary road to the Louisiana PepperPlex, which suffers from intense traffic when games are held. The project was made possible thanks to the New Iberia Police Department. Chief Todd D’Albor offered a large sum from his department for the project due to the large amount of officer-involved work involved like directing traffic during games. 

Although installing a traffic light was initially entertained as a possibility, city government decided on installing a second road near Chili’s that will allow for a second entrance and exit to the PepperPlex.