Summer construction isn’t affecting just city drivers; dozens of road projects throughout unincorporated Allen County are also under way.
Stretches of newly paved blacktop are beginning to appear throughout rural Allen County as dozens of county highway projects roll out with the help of federal stimulus money.
Major road projects in Fort Wayne – such as those on Aboite Center Road, on Lima Road and downtown – are more visible because they are in high-traffic areas.
But the bulk of the county’s projects are less noticeable, often resulting in brief lane closures.
Federal stimulus money will pay for the repaving of more than 66 miles of road in unincorporated areas of the county this summer – more than nine times the road miles Allen County was able to resurface last year.
In 2009, the county repaved more than 7 miles of roads and completely rebuilt 5 miles of existing chip-and-seal roads, which are roughly paved rural roads.
And four miles of gravel road were turned into chip-and-seal roads last construction season, according to the Allen County Highway Department.
The highway department improved fewer miles of road the past two years than it did in 2007. That year, nine miles of gravel roads were converted to rough pavement and more than 12 miles of roads were resurfaced.
In 2008, the county highway department lost an estimated $2.1 million in county economic development income tax revenue and other road-related tax dollars that are now diverted to the city of Fort Wayne as a result of the Aboite Township annexation.
The county uses a portion of its CEDIT revenue to pay for roadwork.
For this construction season, the county set aside a greater portion of its remaining CEDIT revenue for road conversions.
An extra $1.3 million will convert an estimated 13 miles of gravel road to the less-dusty chip-and-seal roads this summer, highway director Bill Hartman said recently.
Out of the county’s 1,334 road miles, 226 were still gravel or stone at the end of December, according to the highway department’s recently released 2009 annual report.
Through the federal American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, the county will receive $4.7 million for urban roads and guardrail improvements.
An additional $2 million will be to repave rural roads in unincorporated areas, according to the Northeast Indiana Regional Coordinating Council.
Some stretches are already complete, while others are waiting for road stripes to be painted, said Dan Allen, chief project engineer for the highway department.
Repaving work began this spring and will continue in the county through August, Allen said.
