Rubberized pavement can fill cracks. Formed concrete improves drainage.

But when it comes to restoring a smooth surface to a city street, Lawrence officials are finding an efficient solution — and a wear-extending preservative — in a 3/8-inch-thick layer of new pavement.

Such work can stretch road restoration for the recession-minded. The process, called microsurfacing, serves as a way to delay traditional repaving projects that are six times more expensive.

“We can do a lot more with a lot less money,” said Mark Thiel, assistant director of public works for the city of Lawrence. “We can make our maintenance dollars go a lot further.”

Microsurfacing is expected to begin this week on the first of dozens of streets lined up for improvements this spring and summer. Much of the early work will focus on most of the neighborhood streets between Kasold Drive and Iowa Street, from 19th to 31st streets.

Such work is only the beginning for Lawrence streets, with many poised for infusions of liquefied, thin and traditional layers of asphalt as part of a ramped-up program to improve road conditions in town.

So far the city has committed spending:

• $1.02 million for microsurfacing this year, a combination of 2008 and 2009 programs. The total work will be expected to cover the equivalent of about 45 miles of single-lane road.

• $242,000 to pour rubberized pavement into cracks, sealing the emergent fissures before they can lead to erosion of street foundations. The city has contracted to use about 110 tons of the material, with work already started on sections of Sixth Street and North Second Street. All areas of downtown will be sealed, as will a stretch of North Iowa Street north of the Kansas Turnpike and other roads, as material remains available.

• $439,394 to install new curbs and gutters, enough to run for 3.4 miles in various locations in town. Included will be stretches of Harvard Road and connecting streets in a neighborhood between Wakarusa Drive and Monterey Way.

And more work is on the way:

• The city plans to repave Ninth Street, from Iowa to Tennessee streets. The work will include widening the intersection of Ninth at Avalon Road, adding a left-turn lane for traffic turning north from Ninth. The project will be financed, in part, with $290,000 in revenues generated by a new 0.3 percent city sales tax dedicated for road improvements.

• All lanes of 23rd Street, from Iowa Street to Kentucky Court, will be repaved. No cost estimate has been compiled.

• Three separate phases of “mill and overlay” projects — the technical description for removing a stretch of damaged road surface, then replacing it with a fresh layer of pavement — also are scheduled.

“The overall goal of our maintenance program is to seal the pavements, and to keep the ultimate that will have to happen — and that is to remove the entire roadway and replace it — from happening sooner,” Thiel said. “Basically, we want to extend the life of the pavement as long as we can.”