Sean C. Morgan
A portion of North River Road will remain graveled at least through the end of this year.
The Linn County Road Department has graveled sections of both North River and Quartzville roads because of slides.
During flooding earlier this year, North River Road had a slide, said Roadmaster Darrin Lane. The Road Department ground up the surface a couple of months ago and is planning to leave it that way until the officials figure out what to do with the road. The graveled area is about a mile and a half east of Foster Dam Road.
On Quartzville, a single lane has been graveled, Lane said. That road will be repaired using federal funds. Crews will dig it out to the bedrock in hopes of solving ongoing slide issues.
On North River, “there’s all kinds of problems with the road and stability,” Lane said. He thinks it has to do with the water level in Foster Lake and its impact on ground water.
The road has been that way for decades, Lane said. “It slides, and you don’t know it till somebody tells you.”
It may drop 3 inches, and officials don’t know about it right away, he said.
The county cannot afford to fix North River right now, Lane said. It’s a big project that will take months.
In years past, the county just added asphalt, Lane said. He said the pavement could be 6 to 10 feet thick in some spots.
This time, the Road Department decided to grind up the surface, Lane said. “We decided to convert it to gravel and maintain it as a gravel section.”
The gravel is easier to maintain, Lane said. “By keeping the gravel for awhile, we can just go out with a grader.”
The road is signed for bumps and loose gravel, Lane said.
There have been two accidents in that area, he said. The first was in mid June. A passenger was transported by Air Ambulance to the hospital. A second crash last week resulted when the driver was going to fast and lost control on the gravel.
Officials have taken a look at the entire length of North River and have been replacing signs to meet new federal standards adopted by the state in December, Lane said. The new standards require numerous changes along the roadway. Gone are the signs for “sunken grade.” They’re replaced by “bump” and “dip” signs.
“We’re also in the process of adding over 100 chevrons,” Lane said. The new standards require them when the suggested speed for a curve is at least 15 mph different from the underlying speed limit, which means the addition of new chevrons.
Linn County must add 10,000 chevrons by 2019, Lane said. With the problems on North River, road officials decided to start there. How much do the chevrons cost?
The county may decide to replace the asphalt, Lane said, but that won’t be until next winter, at the earliest.
Drivers should pay attention on winding roads like North River and Quartzville, but it’s especially important to watch carefully and pay attention to the signs, Lane said.
In the meantime, the Road Department, which handles 1,100 miles of road, is doing its best to address the problems, Lane said.