Paving the way

Salamonia, check.

Bryant, check.

Pennville, check.

Dunkirk, check, check.

Portland, check.

Jay County, check.

Every local entity that sought grant funding for road paving has been approved.

The three towns, two cities and county will receive a total of about $2.25 million in Community Crossings grant funds, Indiana Department of Transportation announced Wednesday as part of its list of 280 grant recipients that total $100 million statewide.

“That everybody was on it, that’s the first time it’s ever happened,” said Ami Huffman, director of Jay County Community Development, who handled applications for all of the cities and towns. County engineer Dan Watson wrote the county application. “It’s the first time that every application has been funded in an INDOT round, especially of this magnitude.

“That means every street in Salamonia is paved, and nearly every street in Bryant. That’s great for those communities, because it will be a long time before they have to fight that maintenance again.”

The only local municipality not to receive funds was Redkey, which chose not to apply during this round after receiving $75,000 for paving that was completed this summer. It plans to take part in the next round, for which applications are due in January.

The biggest chunk of funding — $862,500 — went to the county for paving projects that are already underway. That includes paving Boundary Pike between Portland’s southern city limits and county road 300 East — crews from Milestone Construction were working on a section of that stretch of road Wednesday — and county road 500 west between county road 200 South and Indiana 26.

Communities had the option of applying for the funding for future work or for reimbursement of work already done. The county chose the latter route, seeking the funds to cover the aforementioned projects.

Doing so, Watson said, will free up money to allow for future projects. At the top of the list is paving Como Road and Mount Pleasant Road, both of which he said he hopes to get done in 2019.

“It’s huge,” he said. “We’re trying to get caught back up because we got so far behind on paving because of lack of funds. … Some of these roads haven’t been touched for years.”

The same is true for most of the roads in the smaller communities.

Huffman pointed out that every street in Salamonia will be repaved thanks to the grant funds, and nearly every street in Bryant will as well. She noted that Pennville’s recently completed asset management plan was used to ensure that the worst roads in the town would be repaired first.

The paving lists for those towns are as follows:

Bryant ($285,021.55) — Main Street between Bryant Pike and Hendricks Street (U.S. 27); Railroad Street between Main and Elm streets; Wilson Street between Hendricks and Malin streets; Francis Street between Wilson and Elm streets; Malin Street between Wilson and Walnut streets; Walnut Street between Meridian and Malin streets; and the entirety of Elm and Meridian streets, Bryant Pike and Belgian Lane.

Pennville ($245,974.04) — Washington Street between South and Pleasant streets; Meridian Street between Liberty and Pleasant streets; and Liberty and Main streets between Meridian and Broadway streets.

Salamonia ($205,476.12) — East Street between Washington and North streets; Jackson Street and Treaty Line Road from Washington Street to the end of the asphalt; North Street between Wood Street and county road 500 South; Wood Street from Washington Street to the northern town limits; and the entirety of West, Lafayette, Madison, North, Harrison and Washington streets within the town limits. 

“That is so exciting,” said Connie Southworth, Salamonia’s clerk-treasurer. “Obviously it’s a project we never could have done and we’re just extremely grateful.”

She noted that the town gets about $5,000 annually that is dedicated for road work. Given that amount, it would take at least two decades to accumulate the funding it was awarded Wednesday.