Couple balks at rough roads

The county roads north of Sidney need more attention, according to Don and Sherrie Dudley.

The couple came forward at Tuesday’s county commissioner meeting with photographs, car repair bills and stories detailing the pothole-ridden roads. County Road 103 – one the Dudleys drive on every day – had been neglected, in their opinion.

“For two years, we’ve been asking to have this road repaired,” Sherrie Dudley said.

She said she has had two accidents on the road because of the potholes. The first occurred in March, and the second occurred about two weeks ago.

“These accidents happened at night, when you cannot see the holes,” Don Dudley said.

“You can’t even look for the livestock going up and down the road,” he said. “If there were even an antelope or something in there, you wouldn’t be able to see it because you were watching for all the holes in the road. And some of these holes were a foot deep.”

The roads were originally used by the military to access the Sioux Army Depot. After its closure in 1967, the military no longer maintained the roads.

“From ‘68 to now, that road has not been resurfaced,” Don Dudley said.

“Unfortunately, we’ve got a lot miles in the county just like that,” County Commissioner Harold Winkleman said.

“Two weeks ago I hit another hole right before I had Don call Tom (Noel, Highway Superintendent) again and ask him when they’re going to fix it,” Sherrie Dudley said. “He said they didn’t know if they were going to have the money to fix it this year or not.”

Coincidentally, repairs started on the road the day the Dudleys asked to be on the county commissioners’ meeting agenda. It was repaired the following week, but potholes are already forming.

The cost of paving the road is prohibitive, according to Noel. “To pave three miles is $800,000,” he said.

“What happens if you just patch the holes as they become apparent on these minimum-traveled roads?” Don Dudley asked.

County Commissioner Ken McMillen replied that the roads would have to be in a good enough state to be able to maintain them that way.

“They weren’t designed for regular travel,” he said.

County Commissioner Steve Olson questioned whether it should remain a paved road at all, and the Dudleys agreed that turning it into a gravel road might be a better idea.

However, the means to grind the paved road into a gravel one are not yet available, Noel said.

“We’re looking at grinding up a road that’s got 300 cars a day on it now, and you don’t have near 300 cars a day on (County Road 103),” he said. “That’s part of our problem. We can’t afford to fix a 300 car-a-day route – how can we fix one that’s got 10 or 20, at the peak maybe 50 or 100 at the highest on it?”

According to Noel, the road was supposed to have been ground up by now. But due to machinery problems, it could not be done. He said there is supposed to be a machine available by the end of the month to grind it, but Noel had millings placed on the road in the meantime in case the machinery does not arrive in time.

The Dudleys are concerned about the condition of many of the county roads in that area.

“Somebody’s going to get killed eventually, if we don’t start maintaining those roads up north,” Sherrie Dudley said. “Try (county road) 105 – it’s a nightmare.”

“I’d also like to address road 32,” she added. “We need to get some paint on those roads, because in the winter time when it snows you don’t know what side of the highway you’re on. You have all those Cabela’s people going back and forth.”

Noel said that a road needs to have a certain amount of traffic using it each day in order to justify the cost of painting, and painting that route wasn’t in the budget this year.

The Dudleys asked that the county pay for the repairs that were required due to the poor road conditions, which cost more than $736.

The county intends to turn the case over to their insurance company for investigation.