City Underway with Road Repairs

Road Material Stored on Terrace Street off Memorial Drive

Several streets in Lamar are currently undergoing resurfacing projects, part of a comprehensive plan that was announced by City Administrator, John Sutherland, this past February.  South 1^st and South 8^th Streets have been roto-milled and currently, almost all of Memorial Drive, from South Main Street to CR EE.5 is being re-surfaced.  These are some of the roads in most need of improvements at this point.

A Portion of Memorial Drive

Sutherland said the city road crews were given an unpleasant surprise recently, as when they began work, they discovered that after the first inch or so of road material was scraped clean, the crews hit dirt.  “This helps explain how those streets got into such bad shape so quickly,” Sutherland explained to the Lamar City Council during the bi-monthly meeting on June 9.  It will also mean some additional costs in material to do it correctly.

South 8th Street Repairs

An earlier study showed that the City of Lamar has 60 municipal miles of roadway to maintain and 13 miles are rated ‘poor’ and require an overlay or should be rebuilt.  Thirty-three miles are in fair shape and can get by with a crack seal and eight miles are rated in good condition and should last from six to ten years of normal wear before repairs are needed.

Some high priority areas are South 14^th Street between Yucca and Park, all of Willow Valley, which is currently under repairs as well as stretches of Cedar, Maple and Beech Streets.

By Russ Baldwin