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In the past five years, the number of lane miles, or 12-foot-by-one-mile stretches of road, repaved in Queens has grown steadily.

In 2004, 185 lane miles were repaved, while this year 310 lane miles in Queens will be resurfaced.

The New York City Department of Transportation does most of its repaving work between mid-March and mid-December, but more than one third of this year’s work is being conducted during the summer. Crews take an average of 15 days to have a road back in service, though weather and the necessity of repairing utilities sometimes extend the process.

The borough is examined holistically and resources are dispatched to different Community Boards according to need. This summer, Community Boards 7, 12 and 13 are receiving the most attention.

The DOT has a Street Assessment Unit that annually surveys half of the City’s roadways, ranking them from one (worst) to 10 (best).

“Resurfacing is considered on roadways that are considered ‘fair’ or ‘poor,’ this translates to those having a seven or lower condition rating,” Craig Chin, spokesman at DOT, said.

While Chin continued to say that lower scoring roads are given priority, this still seemed like a high benchmark to a layman.

“They do the [streets] that are [rated] seven and below because they want to keep those roads in good condition, they don’t want to let it get to a 1 or a 2 where it has to get total reconstruction,” he said.

The City also saves money by contracting out the process of “milling” streets, or tearing up their top layer of asphalt, while keeping the more finely tuned work of paving in-house. Frugality can also have environmental benefits. The DOT uses asphalt that is 40 percent recycled content and last year it recycled 194,752 tons of asphalt for its resurfacing program.

The total cost of this year’s resurfacing is almost $42 million.

At press time, the DOT was unable to provide an explanation for the steady growth in the number of repairs needed. However, some common causes of damage to asphalt include extreme weather, street excavation, excessive loads and accidents.