Kent drivers late next year will have a much smoother ride up and down the James Street hill once crews finish a $1.7 million project to repave the road.

Crews will repave all lanes along East James Street, also known as South 240th Street, between Central Avenue and 94th Avenue South as part of the $4.6 million raised each year for street repairs from the business and occupation (B&O) tax.

The City Council approved the B&O street project list at its Oct. 20 meeting. The council also approved $2.4 million in residential street repair projects paid for by an increase this year in the solid waste (garbage) utility tax paid by customers. The tax rate on each bill jumped to 18.3 percent from 7.8 percent.

“We will do a full asphalt overlay after landscaping is put in place by spring, then we will do the street,” City Public Works Director Tim LaPorte said at a council workshop about the James Street work.

Crews already removed trees along James Street because the roots tore up sidewalks. Sidewalks will be replaced and some type of shrubbery will replace the trees.

LaPorte said a landscape consultant told the city the area between the sidewalks and street is too narrow for trees, so shrubbery will be used instead. LaPorte said he expects to submit a landscaping proposal to the council’s Public Works Committee in the next couple of months.

In the other major project for 2016, the city will spent about $1 million to replace an asphalt road with concrete along 80th Avenue South between South 194th Street and South 192nd Street.

The road sits low and has a lot of drainage problems as well as high truck traffic, LaPorte said. The project covers two blocks but not the entire street. It will cost another $5 million to install concrete down to South 188th Street.

“80th Avenue lends itself very well to concrete because with a high water table concrete isn’t affected like the asphalt is,” LaPorte said about using the more expensive concrete surface that lasts longer. “When a truck drives over a wet asphalt road it’s like driving over a wet sponge and it all comes up and falls apart.”

Other expenditures from the B&O fund include $600,000 as part of the ongoing concrete sidewalk replacement program around the city; $250,000 in additional funds to finish the traffic island rehab project along Pacific Highway South; $200,000 for crack sealing of roads; $150,000 for pavement markings; and $100,000 for overhead sign replacement.

The most expensive projects from the garbage tax fund include $650,000 to repave 116th Avenue Southeast from Southeast 256th Street to Southeast 248th Street; $500,000 to repave South 254th Street and South 253rd Street from Lake Fenwick Road to South 252nd Place, including 43rd Place South and 42nd Place South; and $400,000 to repave Lakeside Boulevard.

Smaller asphalt overlay projects of about $65,o00 each are planned for several other neighborhood streets.