NEWS

'Deplorable': Counties struggle with roads

Keith Roysdon
kroysdon@gannett.com

MUNCIE – It's not as if there's a crown, sash or scepter involved, but plenty of spots along East Central Indiana roads are eligible for the title of Mr. or Ms. Pothole 2015.

And the honor of having the worst roads is not a distinction that county officials in this part of the state want — until it comes in handy to help explain why they're late in formulating their paving plans for the year.

"We haven't even started paving yet because of the weather," Blackford County Highway Superintendent Ken Penrod told The Star Press recently. "We had a lot more repair work this spring than normal."

There's a lament common among officials responsible for keeping thousands of miles of roads in this part of the state drivable and it usually goes like this: Many, many miles of roads, more potholes than ever and never enough money to take care of it all.

Just how many miles of road do counties in the area have, and how do they tackle maintenance of them?

And if they don't have enough money to keep roads in better condition, why don't they use millions of dollars they spend on traffic roundabouts to pave roads instead?

'Deplorable,' 'Undrivable' and more

In Delaware County, city and county officials just released, within the past week or so, their paving plans for 2015.

That might seem late in the season, but both city and county officials said that while some paving had been done already this summer, the rainy weather for most of June and early July had delayed a nearly overwhelming task: patching thousands of potholes that had erupted in late winter and early spring.

Delaware County officials are not alone.

"They're still patching potholes from the winter," Henry County highway engineer Joe Copeland said recently in reference to his department's crews.

The amount of work to be done this year is little consolation to people like Jeff Wagner, who told The Star Press he was concerned about the poor condition of Delaware County Road 575-E and has expressed those concerns to county highway officials.

It's undriveable," Wagner said. "I told them that someone will get killed."

Wagner might not get an argument from Delaware County Council member Mike Jones, who last week urged that millions of dollars be applied toward road paving.

"The county roads are deplorable and everybody knows it," Jones said.

But how many road miles do counties have and how many miles get repaved or repaired?

Your mileage may vary

Delaware County officials often note that the county has 800-plus miles of roads to maintain and how that can be an overwhelming task.

The county has 757 miles of roads not counting state or U.S. highways — for which the county is not responsible — or 64 miles of roads in Mount Pleasant Township, for which the county had been responsible before the town of Yorktown expanded to include the entire township.

By comparison, the city of Muncie has 353 miles of streets to maintain.

Henry County has 800 miles of roads its highway department is responsible for, while Jay County has 750 miles of paved road and another 250 miles of sealed gravel, or chip-and-seal, roads. Randolph County didn't respond to a question from The Star Press. Madison County has 900 miles of roads.

Blackford County has an easier task with 324 miles of roads — about 25 miles of those being gravel roads.

For decades, Delaware County officials have debated the merits of letting some paved roads return to a gravel state. Sometimes a process like chip-and-seal — a mixture of gravel and liquid asphalt — is found suitable for some roads and is cheaper to maintain.

"We've done more chip-and-seal lately because paving is so expensive," Penrod of Blackford County said. "It costs us $100,000 to pave a mile of 20-foot-wide road."

Separate funding sources don't mix

In Delaware County, officials were years ago encouraged by the state to adopt a wheel tax to supplement road repair funds from gasoline tax and other sources. The wheel tax wasn't popular in some quarters, but since its adoption it has provided about $1 million annually each to the city and county.

Residents frustrated with the condition of roads and streets say the city or county should take money from other pools of funding to pay for paving. A popular sentiment is to take money from traffic roundabout construction and pay for paving with it.

That can't be done, officials at the state level say.

"If the money that is being used is federal money under the highway safety improvement project funding, then no, they cannot use that money elsewhere," said Patrick Conner, a professional engineer and research manager for the Indiana Local Technical Assistance Program at Purdue University.

Stephanie Yager of the Indiana Association of County Commissioners agreed.

"Some large projects or safety projects utilize federal highway funds that can not usually be used for local road projects and road maintenance programs," Yager said.

Besides, Conner said, roundabouts can reduce traffic fatalities by 90 percent and injuries by 76 percent and increase the traffic an intersection can handle by up to 60 percent.

It's unlikely that the debate among county residents, motorists and officials over how to properly maintain roads will ever end.

But Copeland, the engineer from Henry County, said there's one end that every county faces.

"Every county is limited in funds," Copeland said. "When you're out of money, you're out of money."

Contact Keith Roysdon at 765-213-5828 and follow him on Facebook and Twitter.