A proposal to maintain and preserve village roadway was considered during the Village Council Meeting April 12. Boardmembers are looking into chip sealing, a process that would involve covering the roads completely with a combination of a tar-like material such as asphalt and an aggregate such as gravel to make the roads more durable and longer lasting.
‘We’re trying to deal with these roads before they become a complete mess and have to be completely redone,? said Council President Ed York. ‘Maintenance would be a lot cheaper.?
Councilmembers were concerned that if something isn’t done soon, certain roads would have to be completely rebuilt, costing about $12.50 per square foot as opposed to the less than $2 per square foot cost of chip sealing.The final cost of the chip sealing isn’t certain yet, it depends on how many and how much of the roads are chip sealed and how many bids are offered.
‘As of now the roads under consideration include parts of Rose Lane and Fox Hollow, the entryways to the Condo Association and Fairview and about 650 feet on West Hegel,? said Pete Morey, village street administrator. ‘And so far we’ll have four local bids when they come in.? However, Morey believes the next budget will be roughly $27,000 so the cost shouldn’t exceed that amount.
Generally, chip sealing makes the roads more durable for around 8-10 years, and one of the biggest advantages to it is that once that time period is up, the process can be repeated.
‘It’s important to the community, it wouldn’t be a good idea to let the roads go bad, the people don’t want to spend $200-300 thousand dollars to redo everything, and I can understand that. By maintaining them versus rebuilding them we’d be saving money.?