TORRINGTON – The Goshen County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously in support of an $800,000 chip seal project to salvage several of the county’s paved roads, and Goshen County Engineer Bob Taylor unveiled the next set of dirt roads to be repaired during the county’s road rehabilitation project.
Both projects will be paid for out of the County Road Fund, which is a reserved account funded by various taxes that is only to be used for road projects. Taylor said these projects are the first ones that have utilized CRF monies in nearly a decade.
“We haven’t chip-sealed for probably 12 years, I think, and we’ve got some asphalt paved roads in really bad condition and we’re going to lose them if we don’t do something with that,” Taylor said. “We haven’t done a CRF project for 10 years, so we’ll do those.”
Taylor listed a handful of roads that will be upgraded through the chip seal project, which uses a two-step process to seal cracks in the road and prevent moisture from seeping into the pavement.
“So, this project, what we plan on doing with it, is we have a couple of roads that are in pretty bad shape,” Taylor said. “Road 43 just west of town here, it is really cracking and we’re trying to save that road. Just north of the US 26 intersection by Cool Customs, and then go clear up to Meadowlark Road in sections. We’ll also work on Sheep Creek Road. Part of that is in really bad shape.”
Taylor said the county will only repair a portion of Sheep Creek Road, however, because Taylor is seeking grant funds to reconstruct larger sections of the road.
“We’re going to go as far as $800,000 can take us,” he said.
“That’s the most money I’ve spent in a long time,” Commission Chairman John Ellis said.
Taylor said the Goshen County Road and Bridge’s road rehabilitation project should begin within 10 days. County Road 43, CR 74T, Prairie Drive and the entrance to Dillman Estates are all a part of the first phase of the project.
“We are adding to that project a little bit,” Taylor said. “Road 43, just past the Rock Shop, there is a mixture of different kinds of asphalt that has been hauled in there over the years. It’s falling apart.”
Taylor said phase two will be going to bid this week, and seven contractors have acquired the project’s plans to prepare bids.
“That second project is Hope Road by the radio station. It is falling apart. We’ll redo that, about 1500 feet,” he said. “Then in LaGrange, east of LaGrange, south of 55, the paved road – the south two miles of that is in really bad shape. We attempted some experimental patch for that 10 years ago. Our plans failed because we ran out of money and we couldn’t do phase 2 or 3.”
Road 27/64 near Veteran, Road 108 will also see improvement, as will Arrowhead Road – the residents of which approached the commission in 2019 to ask for help.
“That has been a problem for us for some time. It gets a lot of traffic,” Taylor said.
Taylor said some of the county’s paved roads will also be striped next spring. That project is funded by the Rural Road Safety Program, which granted the county $100,000 for road striping. The project will take place next spring at the conclusion of the chip seal project.
