When students return to the residence halls in a week-and-a-half, the road back may be a little smoother.

During Wednesday’s Board of Trustees’ Finance, Facilities and Operations Committee meeting, President John Peters announced that two deteriorated roads would be patched during spring break.

The patchwork will fill cracks and holes in the area known as the West Campus bus loop and University Circle near DuSable and Watson halls. The bus loop winds in front of Lincoln Hall, Grant Towers and Stevenson Towers.

“That’s the road that’s probably in the worst shape,” said Bob Albanese, associate vice president of finance and facilities.

The work includes NIU grounds crew preparing the damaged areas for a private contractor. Those workers will lay patching asphalt for the gaps in attempt to temporarily solve the problem.

Albanese said the patching, which will cost $50,000 in institutional emergency funds, will buy the university some time until the end of the semester.

The change came after numerous complaints about the conditions on the heavily-traveled roads. The blame for the conditions falls on the Huskie Buses that have traveled those roads since the early 1970s.

The roads, though, were built just a few years earlier in the 1960s.

“We had a cart before the horse, so to speak,” Albanese said.

The patchwork is considered the first phase in a three-part effort to renovate the troublesome roads. This summer, those same roads should be resurfaced. That would cost a total of $628,000, a cost that currently lacks funding.

“Our hope is to resurface the entire roadway, but the extent of the project will be dependent upon funding,” Chief Operating Officer Eddie Williams said.

The last phase would provide a permanent solution to the problem. That phase demands a rebuilding of entire roadways from scratch, which could cost up to $10 million. The roads would consist of concrete instead of asphalt.

The last phase could be paid only if the project is chosen for the list of state-funded capital projects. That could come in 2003, depending on legislative decisions. Williams said a road repair plan has been sent to the state for the past three years without success.