LUBBOCK, Texas — It’s been just under four months since voters approved the $200 million road bond package, and there’s work already being done. 22 miles of road projects will be completed over the next five years.

“Since November, we’ve had six engineering firms that are now under contract for design on eight projects,” said Mike Keenum, the city engineer for the City of Lubbock. “We set up that original plan with council and we’ve got all of our year one projects under contract.” 

The bond, which passed in November 2022, marks the first major investment into city roads in 13 years.

“Some of them will go to full width to five lanes or seven lanes,” Keenum said. “Some will just go to three lanes, but all of them are going to be widening from what’s out there on the ground currently.” 

For starters, Keenum said construction on 34th Street is set to begin this year.

“The bond project was the back of curb improvements, so sidewalks, driveways, lighting, those sorts of things,” Keenum said. “That’ll be from Slide Rd. to Quaker Ave, and then from Avenue Q to the interstate.”

As for 98th Street you’ll see a mile of roads expand to three lanes.

“98th Street from Upland Ave. to Alcove Avenue will be paved,” Keenum said. “We’ll do that construction starting later this year, and then one of the residential rebuilds in Dunbar/Manhattan Heights neighborhood, we’ll start seeing some activity in that neighborhood as well this year.”

Keenum said they’re working ahead on some of the projects under contract, even though they don’t anticipate construction for quite a while.

“Some of them that we knew had lots of right of way acquisition needs, we started now,” Keenum said. “For 82nd St. and MLK Blvd., those two streets, there are lots of right of way needs there. We don’t anticipate that going into construction for three years, but we needed that lead time to get that contract underway right now.”

This will take time. Keenum said they plan to stagger the projects over the next five years.

“We anticipate two to four projects per year going under construction for the next five years to get all of them tied in,” Keenum said. “There’s going to be a lot more orange cones in town, and that’s inconvenient for the traveling public, but when we’re done, it’s going to be so much better.”
For more information, visit the city’s website.