The Jefferson Street Department continues to have a busy year.

Jefferson Public Works Director Dave Morlan says the street crews have been doing a variety of different projects this year, including installing landscaping on East Lincoln Way in the new islands, as well as pavement patching mostly on Hickory Lane, South Wilson Avenue and by Casey’s General Store. He describes the different ways that the roads get broken up to the point that the street department has to fix them.

“It could be from freeze and thaw during the winter, it could be a storm intake that’s sucking some dirt and causing the dirt to erode under the road, it could be just water getting in and freezing and breaking up the concrete, a number of reasons.” 

Morlan points out another ongoing project is tree removal. Morlan estimates between 300 and 400 trees have been taken down this year, mostly due to the impacts of the Emerald Ash Borer. He notes crews are going along removing the stumps as well and he is happy that the city purchased a stump grinder.

“So we’re able to do all of that ourself now. It’s made tree removal much more efficient. They used to cutting it up and chipping it, they would only get two or three a day and now we’ve done up to 16 trees in a day. So it’s a good deal for the street crew.”

Morlan says a road project that was handled by a contractor this year was an asphalt overlay on West Lincoln Way from Grimmell Road to Highway 4. He adds two more road projects are anticipated to hopefully be done this year include an asphalt overlay on Grimmell Road from West Lincoln Way to Monroe Street and the city-owned parking lot that is north of the Jefferson Elks Lodge.