Gainesville Public Works crews are ready to tackle potholes, cracks and bumps that are making the city's roads tough to travel.

Each year, the engineering department studies and ranks every segment of the city's 140 miles of roads.

On a scale of 0 to 100, the worst streets rank lower than 50. The city's dated software doesn't rank which streets are first or second on the list, but city workers have a good idea about which streets need help.

"We determine the streets to repair based on the pavement rating system, as well as the location and amount of traffic," said Stan Aiken, director of Gainesville's engineering department. "A lot goes into it, and the ones that are going to see construction this year were chosen earlier based on a previous rating."

The city has chosen eight roads to repair this year, including often-traveled portions of West Academy Street, John Morrow Parkway and Main Street. Under a state-funded program, the city foots the bill for labor and supplies and is reimbursed for some materials.

"We look at the overall condition of these roads to determine if resurfacing is going to help or if the cracks will reflect back through, and we'll have the same problem in two years," Aiken said. "We also try to spread it throughout the city, since all taxpayers contribute, and we want them to benefit."

This year's worst roads, such as Old Flowery Branch Road and Longstreet Circle, are on a newer list than those that will be repaired in 2011. They'll be considered for work at a later date.

"Streets are dynamic and change. With two hard winters in the last two years, it has really changed a lot of streets significantly," he said. "Part of the reason we chose these streets to repair is to get some that wouldn't have a tremendous amount of patching, but we can lengthen the life on them."

Some of the worst roads require reconstruction, which comes from another funding source. Lenox Drive, which sits at the top of the city's worst roads list, will see repairs between Canon Ridge Road and U.S. 129 thanks to leftover 2010 funds.

"It has serious problems, including alligator cracking and rudding, where the pavement actually loses shape due to heavy loads or repetition of traffic," Aiken explained. "These are signs of base failure, and then when ice and water seep into the cracks, it makes your base problems even worse. That's why we have to go in and deep patch or dig out an area sometimes."

Aiken was able to save money that would have been used to repair roads around the new public safety building on Queen City Parkway. Thanks to the new construction, the road repairs were no longer needed and that money was put toward this year's repair of Lenox Drive. Gainesville City Council members approved the transfer of funds Tuesday.

"We try to significantly improve the roads by using our resources to the optimum," he said.

Aiken will send out the contract for repairs this summer, and road construction will start within a month of council members' approval.

Because many road costs come from the city's general fund budget, public works crews have repaired fewer roads in the past few years, said David Dockery, public works director.

"Budget constraints have led to less paving over the last two years, and the winter weather hasn't helped," he said. "The January weather was a pretty major event as far as our department is concerned."

Streets should last 45 years, with an initial coating that stands for 15 years. Then road workers mill down and replace the top layer every 10 years.

"Technology and specifications have improved so much that even if a road is only 25 years old, a depth used back then may cause it to fail quicker than we would expect it to now," he said.

As residents make complaints about their streets, Dockery watches the stack of requests pile up on his desk. Public works crews file these based on the pavement rating system, which creates a 151-page list of streets.

"This way we have objective criteria for road requests," Dockery said. "Some roads need single-layer paving, and others need total reclamation, but we've got them ranked in a priority list."