With less than a month to go before construction season, the Clare County Road Commission is finalizing 28.3 miles worth of summer projects. The big venture this year is a chip seal project which will fix 22.05 miles of roads throughout the county, said Engineer Manager Deepak Gupta, who oversees all of the jobs until each one is completed.
The upgrades included are 10.61 miles of asphalt overlays, 10.25 miles of gravel roads, and five miles of crack sealing. Some roads need more than one upgrade, thus the difference in numbers.
The county is receiving approximately $1 million from the townships for the troubled streets.
“Over the last four years we’ve been spending up to $1 million a year on chip seals in Clare County,” Gupta said. “The chip seal work has been very instrumental in maintaining our primary paved system. The partnership with the townships has been key.”
The nine roads included in the project are Old State Avenue, Lily Lake Road, Hoover Avenue, Stockwell Road, Trout Avenue, Tobacco Road, Lake Station Avenue, Ashard Road and Mannsiding Road.
Along with the chip seal project, Gupta and his team are working on the Small Urban Project in Farwell. Approximately $500,000 of overlay and chip seal work is going to be done on the remaining 6.25 miles with $375,000 of it coming from federal funds.
Ludington Drive/Surrey Road between US-10 and Coolidge Avenue, a 1.79 mile stretch of Old State Avenue from Hoover Road to North Scott Drive, 1.41 miles of Mill Street from Washington Road to M-115, and .83 miles of Corning Street from M-115 to Hoover Road will be crack sealed, fog sealed and single chip sealed.
“This winter we have experienced colder weather but less snowfall,” he said. “We still have 46 percent of our salt left, so the roads aren’t as bad as they have been after past winters.”