Do you live on a county-maintained road in rural Washington County? An open house to examine maintenance on such roads—and urban unincorporated county roads as well—is open through April 21.
“Your comments will help shape the final project list,” Washington County Land Use and Transportation said in an email.
The open house can be found online.
There, readers can flip through a document that lists a large number of county roads in a tabular format, organized alphabetically by road number and name, with a comprehensive breakdown of maintenance activities divided into categories like “Culvert Flushing,” “Chip Seal,” and “Gravel Road Maintenance.”
A second view shows types of projects planned with a list of roads expected to receive such maintenance underneath the category. So if you’re less interested in what may happen to your road, but want instead to see, say, every culvert project proposed county-wide, you can do that, too.
See a hole in the projects list that you believe should be filled? There’s space to leave a comment for county staff to review and possibly add in the open house.
Following the open house and final changes, the proposal will be brought before the Washington County Board of Commissioners in June—most of our readers have Jerry Willey as their commissioner—for a vote.
The projects range from regular vegetation mowing to complete culvert replacements that may have traffic impacts on local roads this year and into 2025.
Can’t view the open house online? You can also contact LUT at 503-846-7623 or [email protected].
All told, the county currently plans 11.34 miles of chip seal repair, 5.29 miles of paving by LUT crews, 4.55 miles by contractors, four major culvert replacements, four more by LUT crews, 250 miles of bike lane and shoulder sweeping, and 1,800 miles of vegetation clearing and trimming.
In addition, and not included because of their nature, are unplanned emergencies, an example being an emergency culvert replacement on Sellers Road earlier this month. Funding is also available for road service requests on county roads which covers anything from potholes to large roadkill.
Funding for all of this comes from the county’s road fund.
Of note on the proposed list are several local culvert replacement projects. The county plans to replace culverts on Stringtown Road near Watts, Pongratz Road between Manning and Buxton, Braga Road far to the north of Mountaindale, and Tanner Creek Road between Gales Creek and Hagg Lake. The proposal also calls for four other culvert replacements to be done by contractors, one of which is local to this newspaper on John Lee Road near Buxton.
Chas Hundley is the editor of the Banks Post and sister news publications the Gales Creek Journal and the Salmonberry Magazine. He grew up in Gales Creek and has a cat.
