Monday the Marshall County Commissioners received the Road & Bridge Asset Management Plans during their meeting.
Jason Peters, Supervisor of County Highways presented the plans that are required to be in place to be eligible for the Community Crossroads Grant and other state and federally funded projects.
The purpose of the Road Asset Management Plan is to develop and maintain an accurate roadway inventory database of the County’s pavement surface conditions to assist in programming roadway maintenance treatments and repairs for Local and State funding, as well as establish an annual paving program.
The Plan indicates that Marshall County has 816 center-line miles of paved roadway and approximately 75% of the roadways are functionally classified as local roads, with the remaining quarter classified as collectors and arterials. There are approximately 1,297 lane miles of chip and seal roads, 334 lane miles of asphalt roads, over a half mile of concrete road surface and 344 lane miles of gravel roads.
The most recent PASER testing showed Marshall County with 1,397 lane miles rated from 1 to 4 while 224 lane miles were rated 5 to 7 and only 10 lane miles were rated 8 to 10.
Commissioner Kevin Overmyer read from the report, “funding for road improvements is limited and often overlooked in receiving appropriated transportation funding from the state or does not have an enacted user fee such as a county wheel tax to help fund for roadway improvements.” He continued, “As a result of not receiving a steady income of money, simple preventative maintenance treatments cannot be conducted on a routine basis, leaving the roads to fall in a state of disrepair. A majority of the roads in Marshall County are in need of full reconstruction or major rehabilitation.”
The pavement maintenance program details treatments such as crack sealing, hot mix asphalt seal, slurry seal, chip and seal, pug patch, cold seal and fog seal. The plan also spells out a monitoring program and maintenance strategies to be proactive.
The Road and Bridge Asset Management plans have been submitted to LTAP for review prior to being submitted to INDOT for the 50/50 Community Crossroads Grant.
