Resurfacing in works for four streets

Four of Clinton’s busiest and most important non-highway streets at both ends of town, as well as in between, are due for overlay this year. They are Commerce Road on the south, Dougherty Avenue on the north, and Custer Avenue and S. 10th Street in the middle.
Resolutions authorizing bids to be sought for the work were approved unanimously at last week’s City Council meeting.
Assuming the bid is right, Commerce Road will be overlaid from U.S. Highway 183 west to Neptune Drive. The present surface will be milled and used as a base for three inches of new overlay.
At the council meeting City Manager Mark Skiles pointed out that streets in the new Redland Addition housing development will feed into the west end of the new overlay on Commerce. The new surface will end at the point where Commerce joins Neptune.
Councilman Bobby Stewart was glad to hear that the overlay will cover the short stretch of Commerce just north of the new housing addition. “I was out there today, and it was pretty rough,” he said.
Mayor David Berrong asked if it hadn’t been considered for resurfacing in 2015. Public Works Director Donald Webb said he looked at it earlier but waited to put it on the list for resurfacing until the housing addition was done. He didn’t say so, but as long as the houses were under construction, there would have been a lot of truck traffic over that portion of Commerce.
Actually, the new addition is only half done. City leaders are hoping a significant portion of the 15 houses that have been built will soon be sold and 15 or 16 more will be constructed.
The stretch scheduled for resurfacing also runs in front of the Friends for Life animal shelter, opened 10 months ago.
At the other end of town, again assuming the bids come in right, Dougherty will get two inches of new overlay from N. 6th Street west to N. 16th. Dougherty is the city’s northernmost east-west thoroughfare and at one time was being promoted to tie into U.S. 183 and become a quick route for traffic from north of town to what is now the AllianceHealth Clinton hospital. However, that idea was dropped, reportedly because of the difficulty in getting permission for a new at-grade road crossing of the railroad tracks that run under Dougherty just west of 6th Street and the expense of building a new overpass that would have avoided the at-grade crossing.
Councilman Jason Hulin, whose Ward 1 includes that part of town, said one stretch of Dougherty near the top of a hill needs more than overlay. He said it has ruts and depressions greater than two inches deep and it’s going to need some leveling to be brought up to par.
Custer Avenue is also on the north side of town, but not nearly as far north as Dougherty. And it has been for many years a principal route to the hospital from the downtown area, carrying lots of traffic.
The part of it scheduled for resurfacing this year will be from N. 15th west to N. 28th at the northeast corner of Klump Park, also with two-inch overlay. Custer is fairly narrow for the amount of traffic it carries and has no sidewalks, making it a dangerous stretch for pedestrians and bicyclists.
Farmrail has announced plans to replace the existing railroad crossing on Custer just north of Ace Hardware.
The final street on the bid list is S. 10th, from Jaycee Lane south to 13th. That’s a short stretch running past the south part of the Jaycee Lane Shopping Center almost to Interstate 40.
Hulin asked about financing. Webb indicated the city had $250,000 budgeted for street resurfacing this year but has already spent $25,000 of it on the short stretch of road leading from Old Highway 66 to the Riverside Golf Course.
Stewart made the motion to seek bids for the overlay on Commerce, and Don Rodolph seconded. Rodolph made the motion on the other three streets, and Hulin seconded. The three of them voted for both motions, as did Chuy Rosales and Mayor Berrong.