Roads & Bridges
Building and maintaining good, safe, and secure roads and bridges is one of the highest priorities for any County Commissioner, myself included. In my decade-long tenure, the county has replaced one or two failing bridges each year.
Currently, we are developing plans with two engineering firms to replace two bridges in 2026.
Additionally, we have replaced numerous road tubes and culverts throughout the county and helped several citizens replace failing private driveway tubes.
In my opinion, the County Commission should not be satisfied with merely maintaining our nearly 600 miles of gravel roads.
We have a responsibility to continually investigate opportunities and methods to improve our roads.
Ideally, the county would like to get to the point where we can transform some heavily-travelled roads to hard-surfaced roads. In my investigation of this option, I have determined that the cost to convert a road to a hard-surfaced road falls between $20,000 and $25,000 per mile. Additionally, the county will need to purchase the equipment and potentially add personnel to build and maintain these roads. These costs could run over $1,000,000.
Alternatively, the county could investigate the option of working with an independent contractor to make these improvements. This option would be a costly approach as well, but it may be a good way to get started.
While current county revenues don’t support consideration of these endeavors in the near future, I think the commission should begin to develop some preliminary plans in the hopes that we can address some of these improvements as county revenues increase.
Vote for Fritz Hegeman 