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Grand Rapids Reporter

Tuesday, November 5, 2024

So many roads to fix

Street paving

City of Lowell issued the following announcement on Aug 9.

When will construction happen on your road? 

Several years past, roads in our City were in good shape causing construction and resurfacing to become a lower priority. That situation changed. The streets deteriorated, but the City did not keep up on repairs. Current leadership has developed a seven-year road improvement plan to fix several street throughout the City. 

The biggest challenge with road improvement is funding. Each foot of road length costs approximately $200 to resurface. To rebuild the road and fix utilities underneath, costs jump to more than $700 per foot of length and may go as high as $900 per foot of road length. The City has increased the budget for road improvements as much as reasonable with other City financial commitments. To address funding, the City Manager and Department of Public Works Director work hard to obtain state funding and grants to increase the budget and fix more roads. 

This map shows the street plan color coded by fiscal year the road will be fixed. The fiscal year begins July 1st, so the 2021 road repairs begin after July 1st. That means some repairs do not begin until later in the fiscal year, but they all are planned to be completed before the end of the fiscal year on June 30, 2022. At this point, the roads listed are planned resurfacing with only Monroe and Washington scheduled for full reconstruction. 

There are more than 20 miles of road the City is responsible to maintain. The County maintains 2.4 miles of road and the State controls the planning and maintenance of the 2.6 mile stretch of Main St./M-21. Roadways have a life cycle that is impacted by traffic volume and speed, weather and other construction needs along each road. It’s great that the City has a plan to fix and maintain them. Many more streets need repair, however, more time is need to come up with the funding and to schedule their work.

This map will be shared on the City website and Facebook page. You may also look at a copy of it at City Hall. If you have questions, contact Dan Czarnecki, Public Works Director at 897-8457.

Original source can be found here.

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