Roads

I drive these roads for a living. I put more miles on LaGrange County roads in a week than most people do in a month. So let me say the thing plainly:

I’m concerned that we’re wasting your hard earned dollars paving our roads with the wrong pavement for the region. We need to be looking into concrete.

The pavement question

Asphalt is cheaper on the day it goes down. That is the whole case for it, and it is a sticker-price case. Concrete typically lasts 30+ years. Asphalt typically lasts 15; we’re lucky if we get 5.

I am not going to pretend the question is settled. Freeze-thaw is the hard part in northern Indiana, and it is the part concrete skeptics point to, with some reason. That is exactly why the county should study it properly: our soil, our winters, our traffic, our numbers. What we should not do is keep defaulting to asphalt because it is what we have always done.

What the Council actually does

The County Council does not pave roads and I won’t pretend it does. The county highway department does the work. The Council approves the highway budget and the appropriations, which means the Council decides whether road money is a priority or an afterthought, and whether anybody is asked to justify the pavement choice with lifecycle numbers for our region before the money goes out.

Worst first, on a published plan

Road money should go where the road is worst, not where the connections are best. The county should work from a multi-year road plan, published, so you can see when your road is due and hold us to it.

What I will do on the Council

Push for a real study of concrete for county roads, with cost per year of service on the table before any major paving contract is approved. Treat the highway budget as a core service, not a leftover. Demand a published multi-year road plan tied to the budget.