You know summer has arrived in this city when construction crews start tearing it up.

Hilyard Street, between 13th Avenue and Broadway, will be under construction beginning July 15, with one open lane for cars. Alder Street, from 18th to 24th avenues, has been clogged with construction crews since July 10. The dual maintenance projects in the West University Neighborhood are scheduled to begin this week and continue until some time in September. Students are likely blind to construction at this point with so many campus buildings in scaffolding.

Spearheaded by the city’s Pavement Preservation Project, the idea behind both projects is to find streets that have worn down over the years and give them a tune-up.

“Think about it like the roof on your house. You could just leave it and wait for it to fall apart and put in a whole new one,” said Jenifer Willer, manager of the project. “Or you could re-shingle every 10 or 15 years, those kind of things.”

Both construction projects are funded through a 2008 proposal to levy property taxes to repave roads, divvying up $35.8 million initially and being recouped for another $42 million in 2011. Though Hilyard Street has seen better days, Alder has needed a facelift for some time according to cyclists. A popular thoroughfare connecting campus with neighborhoods to the south, complaints from cyclists did weigh in for repaving.

“We heard from a lot of cyclists that the road was very poor and so that added weight to doing the Alder street project sooner than later,” said Eric Jones, public affairs manager. There won’t be any new bike lanes or structural changes to the street, but brand new road and clearer markings, called “sharrows,” to help cars realize they’re driving on a road heavy on bike traffic, yet too small to accommodate a bike lane.

“They’ll help communicate to drivers and cyclists where they should be within the roadway,” said Reed Dunbar, bicycle and pedestrian planner for the city. “And the existing bike lanes on Hilyard will be widened.”