Grant Roads - Announcements

Grant Road Commissioner
Steve Bohnen: 612-720-7492
Email: sbohnen@cityofgrant.com

 

Inventory of Road Signs
An inventory of all road signs in Grant has been completed.
Inventory

 

  Report a Road Issue

Help report and identify road issues. If you have a concern about Grant roads, such as road conditions, repair, safety, snow plowing, etc - please use this online form to report it to the city.

You may also contact the Clerk at 426-3383 with all road questions

The city has established a roads hotline number with recorded messages. Please call 651.707.2780 for road updates.

 

Roads Report

City of Grant
Road Maintenance
September, 2011

The purpose of this report is to update the residents of Grant the way your maintenance dollars are being used to maintain these roads in 2011.  I am very aware of the budget and am working to bring the best maintenance for the dollar based upon the current road policy. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, ideas or complaints.  Without your input we may not have complete information on your road or service needs.  We have implemented a new system of tracking complaints within the City in order to serve you better.

Sincerely,

Steve Bohnen
Road Commissioner and City Council Member
Phone: 612-720-7492
Email: sbohnen@cityofgrant.com

The City of Grant policy (Resolution 2005-122) of road construction and repair is summarized as follows:

Gravel Roads

New.  No new gravel roads are allowed except conversion from paved as requested by residents under special permission from the Council (although there is no policy on this.)

Maintenance.  Gravel will be added to a road as needed based upon traffic volume, gravel condition and budget.  Grading schedules are based on traffic volume, dust control, budget, and gravel condition (where poor condition requires additional grading.)  Dust control is placed once per year based upon traffic volume.  In addition, residents can purchase additional dust control for their road. Except for optional dust control all gravel maintenance is provided at the cost of the City.

Paved Roads

New.  Paved road construction or reconstruction (estimated at $300,000 to $400,000 per mile) is paid for by the residents who petition and pay for their own road conversion from gravel to paved.  In addition, Grant has accepted paved roads in good condition from the county and also requires paving on new roads in a development or subdivision. Grant has paved two areas without assessments where required by the steep grade of the road.  Grant donated money to Mahtomedi for one of their paving projects on Ideal. 

Maintenance.  Crack filling and seal coating are City funded maintenance procedures that help preserve the road surface.  An overlay is a two inch layer of paving installed when other procedures are inadequate to preserve the integrity of the road.  This procedure typically extends the life of the road paving by about 50%.  It costs about $120,000 per mile and by policy is assessed 100% to the benefited property owners.  Shouldering means maintaining the gravel shoulder of the paved surface to support the paving so it isn’t broken down by traffic.  A paved road’s general life expectancy is approximately thirty years according to the City Policy.

2011 Maintenance

General Maintenance
Grant owns and has responsibility for maintenance of 31.16 miles of gravel road and 32.76 miles of paved roads. In addition, the state and county maintains 27.16 miles of road with Grant addresses.

The snow plow contract is being bid for this winter.  We hope to improve service and reduce our costs through the bidding process.  I will keep you informed on our progress,

The City has begun the roadside mowing and brushing for 2011.  We will stretch the budget as far as we are able by using several contractors with proper insurance, contracts and equipment. We will be mowing every roadside with at least one pass where it is passable.

Drainage continues to be an issue on our roads.  We will be replacing culverts and improving ditches as needed and allowed by the budget.

The City was required by Federal mandate to complete a sign inventory by the end of this year and replace all signs that do not meet minimum standards within three more years.  The inventory has been completed by our City Engineer and a plan is in the works. My goal is to replace missing signs yet this year.  Street signs are very important to help emergency services to locate affected properties.  If your street sign is missing please contact me at the contact information provided at the beginning of this report.

Gravel Roads
Gravel road maintenance consists of three primary procedures in addition to the general road maintenance discussed above. Grading, graveling and dust control are detailed below.

A. Grading. The grading contract was re-bid for 2011 and local contractor Klein Brothers came in at a blended rate of $70 per hour.  Because of the savings from the previous contract rate of $100.25 (after the 3% inflation factor), a substantially improved grading schedule was implemented.  This year a program to improve surface drainage and recapture gravel was implemented on our gravel roads.  We have been reclaiming gravel that was plowed into the ditches and moving it to the shoulders to dry then spreading it back on the road while also improving the crown of the road.  You may notice some sod etc. temporarily after this gravel recovery.  This process takes time but will ultimately save the City money while improving the road and its drainage.

Generally, the grading schedule is based upon weather, traffic volume, quality of gravel and dust control. When the weather is too wet or dry or if there is dust control on the road, grading is limited.  High volume roads are graded on a weekly basis. Low volume roads are graded on an as needed basis.

B. New Gravel. New gravel was added based upon the greatest need as determined during the road tour by the Road Commissioner and City Engineer.  The budget allowed 2.22 miles of gravel road to receive 2 inches added to the base. Spot repairs will also be done on a greatest need basis. The graveling policy the council has approved is that every gravel road will get gravel every 5 years.  The current funding level provides for gravel every 12 years. The following roads were graveled in 2011:
1. 80th Street,
2. Ideal south of County Road 12,
3. Jamaca south of Co. Road 12 to 68th Street,
4. Ironwood southern portion, and
5. Spot repairs as prioritized.

C. Dust Control.  Because of the increased cost of dust control the City was not able to apply this to as many roads as in the past few years. In addition, the dust control was not as effective in reducing grading due to the number of large rain events experienced this year.  The dust control was applied, based on traffic volumes recorded in 2003, to 56,000 running feet of city roads.  The City spent $26,583 and saves approximately 24% of this cost on roads graded weekly.  For example, Ironwood dust control cost about $3,550 and reduces grading costs about $840.  In addition, there are undetermined City savings on gravel and drivers’ savings on car maintenance. A second coat will be applied to a few roads, with the highest counts, that are graded twice weekly. The budget of $40,000 will not be exceeded.

D. I believe that a special note on Goodview Avenue is appropriate.  Goodview is the highest volume gravel road in the City.  However, it has very few Grant residents on the road.  I have been working with the City of Hugo and White Bear Township to improve the road maintenance while reducing the cost to Grant residents.  This effort has successfully improved the road, reduced our share of maintenance costs and improved our working relationship with both of these neighboring cities.

Paved Roads
Paved road maintenance in 2011 consists primarily of pothole patching and crack filling. There are some identified spots where simple patching is inadequate and repairing the road base is needed for a more permanent fix.  The budget in 2011 does not allow this level of repair.

A. Pothole repair. Due to the weather conditions this last winter and the age of our roads we have had to expend a large sum to patch our roads keeping them safe and passable.  In order for this to be accomplished we have used money from the seal coating budget as we are up to date on seal coating.  We are continuing to find potholes and are trying to maximize our budget by timing the repair to coincide with other maintenance. Potholes will continue to be an issue for the City next spring.  My goal is to have all of the potholes filled, including new arrivals this summer, repaired prior to the first snow giving us a good start to the winter.

B. Crack filling. On roads that are in the appropriate condition we are crack filling to keep the road in good condition.  We have received a very good bid on crack filling and are able to do more work in this area than originally planned.

C. Seal Coating.  Seal coating is appropriate on roads in good condition with few or no potholes and little alligator cracking which are repaired prior to the application. The seal coating schedule is up to date so no seal coating is scheduled for 2011. In addition, other cities that we normally bid with are not seal coating this year so that it would not be cost effective.

D. Shouldering. Shouldering work consists of placing or removing gravel to maintain the strength of the edge of the pavement and move the water off.

E. While there is no plan or city funding for overlay work, for which the policy calls for 100% resident assessment, some roads would benefit from an overlay and are in good enough condition to have a cost benefit.

Thank you for all of your input and support. I really appreciate you letting me know about your road issues.

 
Our New Snow Plowing Contractors

We have hired Ken Johnson (KEJ Enterprises) to do our snow plowing this year. Ken is a local contractor from Mahtomedi. He has been plowing the City of Dellwood for about ten years. He also plows for the City of Birchwood.

In the event of a large snowfall he will be backed up by our grading contractors Brian and Steve Kline (Kline Brothers Excavating) and Rick and Adam Buberl (Rick Buberl & Son Black Dirt). The Kline's and Buberl's are both from Grant.

We are very fortunate to have these three local contractors working with the city. They have all offered their services at a significant savings to the city. We will be getting about 30% more plowing for the same budgeted amount. They are all bringing more to the job than equipment for a fee, they are all trying to give a little something back to support the community that they live in.

Please be patient with these contractors, help them by keeping garbage cans, cars etc out of their way and most importantly thank them for their hard work when you see them. It means a lot to the road workers when they get a friendly wave or a thumbs up when you drive by them.

We will all work hard together to give the city the best snow plowing service possible.

Please use the road feedback form on the city's website to inform us of any problems that we should be aware of. If you would like to talk to me directly give me a call.

Steve Bohnen
Road Commissioner

 

Proposal for New Road Policy

Information Packet

Proposed Resolution - Special Assessments for Road Reconstruction

While serving in my capacity as your Road Commissioner the City Engineer and I have identified several areas in our current road policy that could be improved upon. My goal here is to improve one of them. Before the council votes on this road policy change we would like to hear from each and every taxpaying resident in Grant. If you assist us with your input it will give the entire council and the rest of the residents a clear picture of the true "Will of the People" on this issue. If this feedback process works well we could use it in the future to insure that we are truly representing you on the big issues.

We have several asphalt roads in Grant that have become a seasonal hazard to drive on and create a large annual expense keeping up with all the potholes. Each year the expenses go up and the roads do not get better. I believe that we should be looking down the road ten years from now and be deciding and planning now how we want to make the best use of our tax dollars.

My proposal would be to allow the city to participate up to 20% towards road reconstruction starting with the worst roads. The roads would be identified by the City Engineer and the Road Commissioner. The list that they create would then be approved by the city council. The neighborhoods on the list will have an opportunity to fix their roads with the city's 20% participation. If a neighborhood passes on the opportunity we will move on to the next worst road.

This proposal only includes reconstruction. It would not fund new construction or overlays.

There are long term savings that support this proposal. For example the 20% city co-pay would be the equivalent to patching the road over a ten year period except the city would appreciate about twenty five years of time before the potholing will reach an expensive level again. We would all be able to enjoy driving on a road in good condition for the next twenty five years for less than half the expense of maintaining these problematic roads.

The funds proposed would allow the city to participate with the residents in the reconstruction of about one mile of roadway per year.

The funds to pay for this change are proposed at $70,000.00 this year. Divided by the 2171 parcels in Grant the average cost per parcel would be about $33.00

The best way to respond with your comments would be to use the road issue feedback form. Please state your name, address and whether you support the proposal to change our road policy to allow the city to pay up to 20% toward reconstructing our worst roads and the average tax increase of $33 per parcel or not. The information will be available to all the members of the council to read before we vote.

Please contact me if you would like more details about the proposal or any of the current expenses within the roads budget.

If you have an interest in following this issue through it's due process of consideration below is a tentative schedule of dates to come and join us for discussion. Everyone and all questions will be welcomed at the informational meetings and the public hearing.

The schedule of public meetings is on the home page.

Steve Bohnen
Road Commissioner