A new state program will help fund maintenance and improvements on some of Kingston’s most heavily trafficked streets.

On Thursday, state Sen. Michelle Hinchey (D-Saugerties) joined Mayor Steve Noble and Department of Public Works Superintendent Ed Norman in a City Hall press conference to tout the new funding stream, which is expected to deliver $1.3 million in state aid to the city this year.

“I know some of these roads are a struggle to manage, and where does that funding come from?” said Hinchey on April 29. “So to be able to have this program now is just another real moment in investing in our infrastructure and figuring out how to do that best.”

The money is part of a new initiative funded with $100 million in the state’s 2021 budget that helps municipalities maintain so-called “state touring routes.” These streets are technically extensions of state roads but are owned and maintained by the localities they pass through. In Kingston, there are 5.27 miles of state touring routes including busy thoroughfares like Abeel Street, the Boulevard and parts of Broadway. Other touring routes in the city include Flatbush Avenue, Albany and Wilbur avenues and Henry Street.

The new funding line is expected to be renewed annually and will join three other state programs — Consolidated Local Street and Highway Improvement (CHIPS), PAVE-NY and Extreme Winter Recovery — which fund most routine repaving and maintenance work in the city. All three funding lines saw significant increases in the 2021 state budget. Altogether, the city will see more than $1.5 million more in state aid for streets, compared with 2020.

The funding for the state touring routes maintenance, Noble said, would give a major boost efforts to maintain streets citywide.

“We really did not have the resources [to maintain state touring routes],” said Noble. “And if we did put the resources into, say, a Wilbur Avenue project we either had to find a separate grant from the state to do that or take paving away from some other part of the city.”