CROTHERSVILLE

A portion of a heavily traveled road in Crothersville undergoing construction will receive a temporary surface until work can resume.

Bethany Road will get a concrete surface, and Kovener Street and Park Avenue will remain aggregate.

They are a part of a stormwater improvement project that involves placing new concrete box culverts over Hominy Ditch at those streets and the rehabilitation of Hominy Ditch from Kovener Street to the Crothersville Wastewater Treatment Plant outfall. The culverts are being upsized, and the ditch is being cleared of debris.

Since Bethany Road is set to be paved in 2018 as part of the town receiving a Community Crossings matching grant, $9,083.06 will be deducted from the stormwater improvement project and put on the paving project.

The town council approved that change order during its meeting earlier this month.

“At least Bethany, where we have all of the traffic to speak of, will have a hard surface through the winter and hold us until the summer when we get to the CCMG,” said Brad Bender with FPBH Inc., the town’s engineering consultant.

The town could have chosen to leave all three streets aggregate for the winter for a $15,208.06 deduction, but the council agreed with the contractor’s suggestion of making a hard surface on Bethany Road.

“I think as much traffic as Bethany has got on it, that’s the way you need to go,” Councilman Bob Lyttle said. “There’s a lot of traffic on Bethany.”

Bender said it will still be considered a construction area, and the road could be a little rough.

“People are going to have to get used to going slower,” he said.

At a previous council meeting, town employees told Bender they didn’t want to see the three streets graveled through the winter. That’s because after it rains, water runs down the streets, especially Bethany Road, and would wash gravel out.

A couple of big rain events had delayed the project, Bender said.

He also presented another change to the stormwater project. A utility pole along Bethany Road will have to be relocated because when the work is done, it will end up outside a guardrail, which would be a liability.

Bender received the cost of $2,314 from Duke Energy to move the pole, and he is waiting to hear from Frontier Communications and a cable company that are attached to the pole on their costs.

Bender said that expense won’t have to be reallocated until after the project is done.

“This project has a $10,000 allowance,” he told the council. “If we don’t use that allowance, I don’t know any reason why we can’t figure out a way to at least pay for this out of the local share, and then the overall cost comes down.”

Bender said the guardrail that is being removed along the streets can be placed in other areas of town where it’s needed.

With the paving project, Bender said he and council President Lenvel “Butch” Robinson recently attended an early coordination meeting at the Indiana Department of Transportation office in Seymour.

Crothersville received $423,406.10 in Community Crossings funding to put toward the project, which will include milling and paving some streets and in several cases adding Americans with Disabilities Act-approved ramps, storm pipes and inlets.

The town also is putting in $70,567.70 this year and in 2018 to bring the total to $564,541.50.

Fourteen projects are scheduled for 2018 to improve streets around the town.

Bender said the project has to be designed, bid, analyzed, awarded and under contract by April 15, but he’s shooting for an April 1 deadline.

A record $150 million in state matching funds for local road projects was awarded to 396 Indiana cities, towns and counties as part of the Next Level Roads: Community Crossings Initiative.

INDOT expects all of the paperwork to come flooding in at once, so Bender said he wants Crothersville to be ahead of the game.

“We don’t want to be the last ones,” he said. “You’ve got to have some time to make sure this stuff is correct, submitted properly and they acknowledge that. Your money goes away if you don’t have this stuff in to INDOT. If it’s not correct, your money goes away, but nobody wants to take that risk at this time.”

Bender said the plan is for FPBH to coordinate the design, construction, administration and inspection so the project can be bid in January or February and awarded in March.

“There are so many of these (paving projects) out there right now, everybody is really kind of getting worried if there’s enough people and companies to do the work,” Bender said. “I think the issue isn’t going to be equipment. It’s going to be the material. There’s only so much supply. You guys want to get in front, and I think it’s just very important that everybody does.”

Bender said the work could start in the spring and stretch into the summer and fall if needed because no deadline for completion was given.

Since it involves 14 projects, Bender said it will require a lot of administrative work for his company. That will cost $41,500. A portion will come from the grant, and the rest will come from a town fund.

“It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of hours,” Bender said. “Part of what you’re going to get with that, we’re going to certify that the work has been done properly and you’ve gotten what you ordered, which is the inspection part of this.

“We think that’s going to be a big deal in these projects for some communities that are going to try to do this on their own,” he said. “They may find out the hard way if they are not really on top of this.”

FPBH won’t bill the town until down the road when it’s ready, and the payments will be spread out.

“My key right now is to get started,” Bender said. “This is going to be spread out for practically a year on our part.”