Bartholomew County government received the maximum annual award allowed through the Community Crossings Matching Grant program.
While you might think county highway engineer Danny Hollander would be delighted with that news, he remains cautious.
“I like to tell people I’m not panicking yet,” Hollander said. “But inside, I am extremely nervous.”
The reason why the engineer is a bit on edge can be described with one word — inflation.
The price of oil used in a number of road projects shot up by 35% from last year, while the cost of a variety of grades of hot mix asphalt is also much higher, Hollander said. Those costs range from $63 to $150 per ton.
At Columbus City Hall, it’s not known how far the $740,171 matching grant received by the city of Columbus will stretch at this time. Some bids for road work opened earlier this year was priced almost the same as they were last year, Executive Director of Public Works/City Engineer Dave Hayward said.
“But at other times, the prices are off the charts,” Hayward said. In addition, the city engineer said it gets more difficult to hire contractors as it gets later into the construction season because they are all extremely busy.
This year, the city is concentrating much of its pavement work on industrial areas of the city. Projects include virtually all of Commerce Park such as Commerce Drive, Depot Street, Greenway Drive and Market Street, Hayward said.
On the north side of town, crews will be working on two separate sections of Long Road. One will be repaving from U.S. 31 to where the road ends at Lowell Road. The other will be a currently undeveloped section from Indianapolis Road to Industrial Road, he said.
And in the industrial park south of State Street near the Columbus City limits, a fresh layer of asphalt will be put down on both Roadway Drive and Kiel Drive. On the other side of the highway just south of Clifty Park, crews plan to put fresh asphalt on Hollowell Street,from Marr Road to Fairview Drive, Hayward said.
Meanwhile, Hollander has been trying to find leftover monies from earlier work, as well as refunds for federal projects, that can be used to combat inflation in order to meet his department’s goal of 27 miles of overlay.
Of the county’s 19 designated projects, four are more than two miles long, the county highway engineer said.
They include County Road 700N, from 350E to 600E; County Road 1150E, from 500N to 700N; Lutheran Lake Road, from Waymansville to the Brown County line; and County Road 650S, from State Road 11 to 100W, Hollander said.
Meanwhile, the town of Edinburgh will receive $471,903 to repave sections of six streets spread across the community, town manager Dan Cartwright said.
They are: Campbell Street, Grant Street, Huff Street, Main Street, Thompson Street and Toner Square, Cartwright said.
Local government units in surrounding counties that also received funding in Round One of the Community Crossings Matching Grant fund include:
- Decatur County $999,999
- Franklin $1 million
- Jackson County $983,241
- Jennings County $501,492
- Seymour $928,683
- Shelby County $928,757
- Shelbyville $$217,854
Applications will be accepted for RoundTwo of the program in mid-summer. While awards for this phase will likely be announced late this year, the funds will not be available until the spring construction season of 2023 gets underway.
Statewide, there are 224 Indiana communities that are sharing a total of $107.8 million in these grants for street and road repairs. Local governments must provide matching funds of 50 percent for larger communities or 25 percent for smaller communities.
