Special effort should be made to finish next summer’s planned Sixth Street repaving project as quickly as possible.

Everyone who drives Sixth Street on a regular basis — not to mention businesses located on that street — surely groaned when they learned after Tuesday’s Lawrence City Commission meeting that a repaving project is planned for the street next summer.

Having suffered through the street work on West Sixth last summer and months after summer was gone, local residents can’t be enthused about the prospect of having the road torn up again. But the state says it’s time to repave 1.6 miles of the street from Arizona to Arkansas streets, so local motorists will just have to put up with the inconvenience.

It’s more than an inconvenience, of course, for businesses whose access is cut off or limited by construction projects. It’s a drain on their livelihood.

Hopefully the city will make a special effort this summer to complete the Sixth Street repaving work as quickly as possible even if it means giving the contractor a financial incentive to complete the project ahead of schedule. Both motorists and business people would be grateful.