MARSHFIELD, WI (WSAU) — Residents of Marshfield should expect a busy road construction season, though City Administrator Steve Barg says most of the work will be done outside of the main roads.
Barg says the city is in somewhat of a tight spot, with several roads nearing the end of their useful life at once. That’s due to an effort in the 70s and 80s to pave all remaining gravel roads in the city. “[We got] a ton of pavement work done, and people no longer had gravel streets. But guess what? They are all now about 45 years old at the same time. Sadly, that means they all need major work at about the same time. That’s something we are struggling with here in the 2020s.”
The majority of this year’s projects involved mill-and-overlay work, in which crews grind up the top layer of asphalt, then lay it back down with new asphalt on top. That adds another 10-15 years of life to the road.
Ideally, the city would be able to reconstruct the road with a new base and water and sewer lines, if needed. Mill-and-overlay provides a more cost-effective fix. “I think this is where most cities are now, so when people ask ‘are you able to keep up with the roads?’ The answer is yes and no. We are able to do work on the roads, but are we able to do exactly what we would like to do in terms of a full rebuild of an older street- in most cases, no,” says Barg.
Many of the streets that will see work this year are in residential areas or side streets, not main streets like Central or Oak Avenue. “It’s usually about 13 or 14 stretches of roadway, about three blocks each in neighborhoods. Some of the streets do get traveled quite a bit, but not at the level that folks coming into town would recognize.”
Other topics Barg discussed with WSAU’s Mike Leischner include:
Start of video- Aftermath of mid-March storm
4:30- 2026 street projects
8:00- Planning for a new police station
12:00- Business campus/economic development updates
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