Monday, March 18, 2024

City approves projects on Commercial, Whitman streets

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Street repair projects are planned for the city of Leavenworth this summer. At the March 28 Leavenworth City Council meeting, the council approved going out to bid on two street projects in the city, on Commercial Street, from 3rd Street to Joseph, and on Whitman Street, from Ski Hill Drive to Woodward.

Total project cost is estimated at $455,000. It is being funded by the state Transportation Improvement Board, with the city providing a 5 percent match with funds from the Transportation Benefit District, which is funded from city sales tax.

This is not a total road construction, but rather this involves a machine which grinds and pulverizes the asphalt and mixes it together. That is graded, then they’ll put 3-inches of asphalt over the top.

City Administrator Joel Walinski said this is the same thing they recently did on West Street.

“It turned out pretty good. One of the reasons we’re going to this rather than seal coating or patch coating, some of the roads are in such bad shape, trying to do a seal coat on top or cut out a piece and put in a patch, it’s not a very long term solution,” Walinski said. “Even this new asphalt on here is a 10-15 year solution, but the seal coating or patching is not going to get us there, just because of the bad shape of the roads.”

When roads were first paved in Leavenworth, Walinski said they really did not do any base improvement.

“What we’re trying do here, by grinding up the asphalt and mixing it the base that is down there, we’re trying to establish some type of base, then put the asphalt on it and hopefully get 15 years out of it,” Walinski said.

The TIB actually helps the city identify the worst roads by means of Pavement Condition Index. Walinski said the TIB comes out to cities and rates the different pavements in town. Any pavement they rate under 60 needs some type of restoration.

Leavenworth has a lot of those streets, he said.

“Then, we take the council input, in terms of sequencing these bad streets and everyone knows there’s lots of them, which ones does the council have a preference on, in terms of completing those streets,” Walinski said.

The reason Commercial and Whitman streets were selected was because there is a lot of traffic on those streets aside from just people who live there. For example, many people use Commercial Street to access Enchantment Park.

This has a higher usage rate than say, Scholze, which is just up the road, he said.

“Basically, that just provides traffic from those homes along Scholze Street. Whitman is another one that a lot of people use to get around town,” he said. “Both Commercial and Whitman are in very bad shape.”

In 2015, the city did a total road reconstruction of Commercial Street, 3rd to 8th Street. Walinski said that project is totally different because it was a total rebuild of the road. He said the city is also planning to do some major cuts and patches to a few roads this year as well.

“Pine Street is one of them, even though we’re in the process of trying to get some design work done on reconstruction, there is some fill that needs to happen on that one,” he said. “There are some spots on Front Street. There is huge blemish in the commercial district that needs to be repaired. There are a few other areas of town where we’re going to take a few sections of roadway up, not the full block, but 20 feet here, 20-feet there with some asphalt overlays.”

Many of the repairs are due to the heaving and thawing of the road this year, Walinski said.

Ian Dunn can reached at 548-5286 or editor@leavenworthecho.com.

 

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