Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Whitman County commissioners approved Monday the annual road construction program for 2018, separately approving seven projects.
Public Works Director Mark Storey gave a description for each.
The Whelan Bridge replacement project marks an old wood bridge four miles north of Pullman on Whelan Road which has shown rising costs for maintenance – wood wearing out, steel spikes pulling out that are then replaced and more.
The concrete Glenn Miller Bridge is another replacement project slated for this summer on Huntley Road west of Colfax. Both the new Glenn Miller and the Whelan bridges will be concrete, estimated at a cost of $145,000 each, first requiring permits from the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The Sand Road Project east of Pullman refers to putting a paved surface on four miles of road which crews worked on last year to lessen angles on a stretch of S-curves, and put in guardrail. For this year, the county road department first intended to put hot-mix asphalt on the gravel, but deemed it too expensive, now substituting a plan for penetration-shot asphalt instead.
The project, estimated at $550,000 will run on Sand Road from the Druffel grain bins, next to the Jennings Road intersection, to the Idaho state line.
Further work on the list approved by commissioners includes Ryde Road, Elberton Road and Glenwood Road projects. These refer to spots where a bridge is near the turnoff from a paved road onto the gravel roads. The short stretch between the pavement and the bridge makes it hard for road graders to grade.
The county Public Works department will do a short section of penetration shot asphalt “to avoid a maintenance nightmare,” Storey said.
Finally, a bridge approaches project will put hot-mix asphalt down on seven bridge approaches in the county – from 20 to 40-feet in length to reduce damage from gravel being kicked-up onto the bridge deck and ground into the surface span by traffic.
“Each one of these has a bridge deck we want to protect,” Storey said. “It just makes our bridges last a little longer.”
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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