Montgomery County preps new five-year road program

 The Montgomery County Engineer’s Office is prepping to implement its new five-year road improvement plan. 

Engineer Brad Skinner said every year, the county adopts a five-year program that coordinates with the fiscal year program  and sets up their projects for the next five years. Typically, the first year is the accomplishment year, and includes a variety of projects. 

“Some of the projects are those that have been going through the development process for several years to accomplish environmental and archeological clearances, and funding tracks to make sure the money is there when the projects go to bid letting,” Skinner said. 

In the second year, the projects are firm for a start and completion as well, and are consistent with the years leading up to the next version of the five-year plan. Skinner said the format is used for pre-planning projects in the years ahead. 

“We try to keep them progressing forward, depending on funding, design details that require more or less money and affect the timing, and the cost of previous projects if the bids come in higher than you were expecting. If one of the projects in the previous year cost more money than anticipated, it reduces the available funds for the upcoming projects and causes potential delays because the funding isn’t available.”

Other delays can be caused by unforeseen replacements or pavement work. 

“A good example is the project we’re working on at the intersection of Evergreen and Highway 34. It had been a project considered in the past, and we had a lot of public input expressing a need for work to be done, so that project has been included in the plan for year two,” Skinner said. 

Among the projects currently being completed are asphalt surfacing from Coburg, four miles west and north to 230th Street. Then north from 230th Street to the intersection with Highway 34, new concrete will be laid. 

Skinner said they have also combined two safety grants for a combined total of $1 million to widen old Highway 34 from Emerson to Fernwood, located a few miles west of Red Oak. 

“It’s going to be done almost completely with outside funding. We’re also coordinating a bridge replacement project with the city of Villisca on 265th Street.  A second bridge is located on the south end of Grant. Both are in the fiscal year 2017 portion of the five-year plan, but we’ll get started on them this year. This calendar year is actually the busiest that anyone can recall around here,” Skinner said. 

Skinner said the next couple of years will be on the lighter side when it comes to projects, as they are borrowing ahead to work on the highest- need projects as soon as possible. 

One of the biggest steps his department makes is to seek as much outside funding for projects as possible. 

“We are trying to seek as many competitive grants as we can that are out there.  Hopefully we’ll keep getting funds for expansion of Highway 34 to Highway 71, or farther across the county. It’s a major accomplishment to pull in that funding that doesn’t cost the county. We’re pleased to have it available to us, and it’s the only way we could widen old Highway 34,” commented Skinner. 

While they have funding for a variety of projects, there are still some projects that need pavement replacing where funding is short at this time. 

“The north section of M-63 has pavement in rough shape. We’re trying to patch the pavement, but it’s old and coming apart on us. Unfortunately, we have no funding identified for that until 2021. So that road may have to revert to aggregate before we have the funding to replace it.”

Overall, Skinner said they work hard to get the roads fixed before they reach the point of no return, such as H-54 east of Villisca, which will serve as a RAGBRAI route.

“We’re doing an overlay, not because of RAGBRAI, but it will be nice to have it done before they use the route. It’s being funded by local funds generated from the increase in the gas tax. It will be a two-mile stretch of road that we’ll resurface.”