Greene County roads are not expected to have any major construction happening this year.

Greene County Engineer Wade Weiss says based on their five-year construction plan that was approved by the County Board of Supervisors and submitted to the Iowa Department of Transportation, does not include any bridge or major overhauls of the county roads this year. However, over the course of the next couple of years there will be a 4.5-miles stretch on County Road E-57, south of Jefferson and west of Highway 4, and a bridge replacement on County Road P-14 to be done in two years.

Weiss explains they are confined to their funding sources for construction, mainly from the state’s Road Use Tax that they receive $1 million every year, and they can apply for federal aid funding as well.

“That $1 million that we get, obviously doesn’t go very far today. It takes about $1 million to pave one mile of road now. So we’re doing some asphalt overlays, using some federal aid money. We’re going to spend about $2.7 million on an asphalt overlay on that 4.5 mile segment (of County Road E-57). You can see that the $1 million, we just can’t be spending money every year on major construction projects because we just don’t have that. It just hasn’t kept up with the inflation of what the construction costs are.”    

Weiss notes the secondary roads department is only doing routine maintenance projects this year, highlighted by repairing some intake pipes, as well as concrete patching on County Road P-29, which is in the northern part of the county that goes to Fort Dodge.