Mayor's Community Update

Mayor’s Community Update:

Have you ever driven down a street in town and hit a pothole or a rough spot in the street and immediately thought “the city really needs to fix this street?”  I’m sure we all have, probably more than once.  

In this community update, I want to shed a little more light on our streets and the work that goes into the effort to give everyone a smooth ride throughout town.  Keeping the streets in good condition is a job that is never done for our street department.  However, it is a job that the street department and the City will stay committed to for our community.

Colby has over 45 miles of streets in town.  That’s almost the distance to get from Colby to the Nebraska state line!  Some of those streets get a lot more daily traffic on them than others, but all the streets are important to the overall makeup and appearance of our community.

Our street department repairs potholes, cracks, and damaged areas throughout the year as the weather allows.  The City also has a continual list of streets that need repaired and/or some attention given to them to keep them in good condition.  That list is prioritized by a committee and then submitted for cost estimates.  Based on the estimates and the budgeted funds available, streets are selected for the upcoming street repair season.  

Temperatures must be warm enough to complete the street repairs, so the repair season is from late spring thru early fall.  Our street department crew has a lot of duties and responsibilities throughout the year, but when the weather is warm, street work is a top priority.

Excluding patch repairs, there are two main ways that the streets are repaired:  The mill and overlay process mills down the surface of the street and then a new surface is overlayed on top.  The second way streets are repaired is a chip and seal process.   In this process, a thin layer of heated oil is applied to the surface followed by the placement of small aggregate rocks.   The Aggregate is then pressed into the oil with a packer.  The mill and overlay process is commonly used when streets have larger cracks, soft areas, or uneven sections.

At the April 2^nd and April 16^th City Council meetings, the Council approved approximately $1,533,080 for street improvements this year, which includes $800,000 in KDOT Grant Funding that was approved for Colby.  This funding will provide a two-inch mill and two-inch overlay on the following streets:

On Range Ave.: from Poplar Street to Interstate 70

On School Ave.: from Ash Street to Plum Street

On Grant Ave.: from Pine Street to Walnut Street

On Grant Ave.: from Webster Street to 4^th Street

On 5^th Street: from Copeland Ave. to Range Ave.
On 3^rd Street: from French Ave. to Range Ave.

On Riddle Ave.: from the dead end to 4^th Street

On French Ave.: from the dirt road to 4^th Street

The mill and overlay on this list of streets will cover nearly three miles of the over 45 miles of city streets.  As you can see, street repairs are expensive and an ongoing process that the City must budget and plan for every year.  Rest assured that the City will stay committed to providing you with a smooth ride and will continue “working together for a more prosperous community.”

Mayor - Lee Leiker