Residents that live on County Road 17 had the same questions for Dallas County Commissioners that they did in March — the main one being is there a plan to repave their road.

The group is tired of driving on the same torn up, bumpy road every single day, and they want commissioners to know that they want something done about it.

“We empathize with y’all,” said Commission Chairman Kim Ballard. “The road needs to be repaved. Asphalt has a natural life span — a lot less than how long that asphalt has been there. Nobody is arguing that.”

What is stopping the commission from paving County Road 17, much like many other roads in the county, is money.

“I wish we had the money to fix every road in Dallas County,” Ballard said. “Every commissioner in this county has got roads that are that bad or worse. I’m not minimizing how bad [County Road 17] is, but there are some that are much worse.”

According to Jan Justice, who lives on 17, the road hasn’t been resurfaced since it was paved in 1974. Since then, the road has been patched countless times, and it isn’t holding up.

While Ballard didn’t have an answer as to when the road might be paved, he did let them know that they are certainly looking into it.

Christian Testing Laboratories, a company that evaluates pavement and foundations, is currently running tests on the road.

“The testing will tell us what’s under the road,” Ballard said. “It will also tell us what it would take to bring it to a level that would handle the weight load that’s being imposed on it and has been imposed on it.”

The road has been subject to trucks hauling logs, gravel and sand. Before any pavement is put down, Ballard wants to make sure the weight limit issue is handled.

“It does not make any sense after we’ve discussed it to do it anything less than what would control that weight limit because it is going to get torn up again,” Ballard said. “If we were to go down there and in-house pave it now on top of the surface that’s under the road now, then in a year’s time it is going to start getting torn up again.”

The tests are expected to be completed in about a month, according to Dallas County Engineer Coosa Jones.

Ballard said preliminary reports show the cost of repaving the road would cost more than$1,000,000, and the county does not have that kind of money to spend on one road over another at once.

Ballard mentioned a possibility of having the road done a piece at a time like other roads in the county.

“I think they left here with a better feeling that they are not the only ones that live on a bad road,” Ballard said. “We’re going to do what we can do.”