Public Works Miscellany

It has been Public Works week in my world with various issues including the Hwy 3 closure. As a result of sharing that information, the good folks on Facebook who are friends with the City asked some good questions about two other roads — Dakota Street and 8th Street. Below is an update for those that are curious.

Hi everyone. Here is an update on 8th Street and Dakota Street. First, both of these culverts became too damaged for traffic during the floods caused by Tropical Storm Fay. Because they occurred as the result of a weather event with the possibility of FEMA funds, the city applied for grant money to make repairs.

Unfortunately, neither project received federal funding and the application process caused delays in beginning work on Dakota Street. Basically, to receive the grant, Kannapolis couldn’t begin work to fix the road until FEMA had reviewed the merits of the application. Not the best scenario, but it was important to make sure there weren’t funding sources outside of city dollars to make the repair.

Now, for the good news. Dakota Street is currently being repaired and is slated for a mid-May opening. The bad news is that 8th Street is a very expensive fix (in excess of $1 million or $.003 on the property tax rate). There is no time frame for 8th Street due to the cost.

To give you an idea of the needs for both these projects and others, check out the presentation given at the council retreat in December. You can access it by visiting this page on the city website and clicking on “City Council Retreat Transportation, Stormwater and Pedestrian Five Year Plan.”

http://www.cityofkannapolis.com/co_services_display.asp?id=1427&deptid=1

The Science of Road Repair

Example of a box culvert.

As most of you — our faithful readers — probably know, Hwy 3 is currently closed between Rainbow Drive and Franklin Avenue due to a water main break. Apparently what happened is that a box culvert settled, resulting in the break of the waterline. We’ll know more on that later.

Repairs are currently underway and would normally be completed in a day. But here’s the problem. In the winter you can’t always get hot asphalt or dry material to make the repairs. That little issue will likely delay the repairs on Hwy 3, and it has also impacted the progress on our downtown waterline project on a few different occasions.

So, when you hear on the news about this being the coldest winter in however many years, you now know one other little (or not so little depending on your normal driving routes) impact this winter is having in our region.

Snow? Ice? Could be an interesting Saturday.

With the forecast for the weekend, my attention today is turned to snow and ice. As of this writing, it looks like more snow and less ice which is fantastic in my book.

While I am sitting here thinking about sledding, snow angels and tomato soup, staff all over the City is preparing for the potential winter storm.

I called over to the public works department earlier this week and asked for their snow removal plan. Basically, I wanted to know what roads they plowed and in what order. Remember, DOT is responsible for lots of streets in Kannapolis like Cannon Boulevard and Dale Earnhardt Boulevard.

I was expecting a few documents that I would share here. Instead I got 17. Suffice it to say it is a complicated process and our crews do a great job getting the roads back to normal during winter events. I admittedly didn’t open all the documents, but here’s a fun factoid. Snow plows shouldn’t go more than 20 mph. Now you know too.

If you’re curious about the pretreatment and snow plowing maps, I’ve linked them. I think it is interesting to see what the City handles, what DOT handles, and what they work on together. Feel free to ping me with any questions.

P.S. If it does snow tomorrow, please be safe. Stay off the roads if possible. Heck, enjoy some snow angels, sledding and tomato soup and let our crews get the work done they need to so we can get things back to normal.