CENTRAL — The City of Central is taking on a major neighborhood road overhaul, launching an 11.7-mile rehabilitation project that includes new pavement, updated speed limits and redesigned street signs.

Mayor Wade Evans said the goal is to shift away from the previous approach of fixing one or two streets at a time and instead complete entire neighborhoods in a single coordinated effort.

“Our focus is on completing neighborhoods where in previous years and previous administrations they’d do one or two streets,” Evans said.

The project includes full road resurfacing along with new street signs that carry the city’s logo. Crews will also install new speed limit signs to standardize traffic rules across each neighborhood. Evans said the city brings in a dedicated team to update signage immediately after paving work wraps up.

“If we’re going to be there, let’s do the whole neighborhood… and actually have a team that comes in afterwards and changes all the signage,” he said.

Central is also working toward placing its roads on an 18-year maintenance cycle, with the goal of ensuring predictable upgrades instead of waiting for pavement to deteriorate.

As of this week, the city has milled about half of the project, including work in the Tanglewood area. Evans said crews are timing heavier base repairs near Tanglewood Elementary School to coincide with students being out of class.

“There’s quite a bit of base work near Tanglewood Elementary… and so we’re trying to time that to happen as school is out,” he said.

Evans acknowledged that the construction may slow down drivers, but said the long-term benefits outweigh the inconvenience.

“Unfortunately, sometimes, it’s the road that you need to be on and it’s an inconvenience — but it too shall pass,” he said.

The city has not yet announced a final completion date for the project.