County commission weighing the cost, benefits of borrowing money for an accelerated paving program

During its summer paving program, the Cape Girardeau County highway department paved 7.75 miles of gravel roads, leaving about 250 miles of unpaved roads in the county.

Commissioner Jay Purcell is a proponent of borrowing money and paving the bulk, if not all, of those roads in a short amount of time. He said because road building costs are increasing at a rate of 10 to 15 percent a year, the county should make efforts to borrow the money at a low rate and pave the roads before costs are too high.

Purcell said through an accelerated paving program, county taxpayers would end up saving money and have better, safer roads. He realizes there is opposition to borrowing money to fund road paving.

"There are some people that strictly believe in pay-as-you-go, and there's nothing particularly wrong with pay-as-you-go," Purcell said. "It's a good model. I just don't think it works well in government, per se, when you know we can borrow money at two percent."

While Purcell said it may be unreasonable to pave all of the roads at one time, he said there was no reason the county could not target 50 to 100 miles of gravel roads for immediate paving.

Part of implementing a successful accelerated paving program, Purcell said, would be adopting a more flexible easement policy.

"I think hand-in-hand what we should be looking at is accelerating paving and having a different road and bridge policy pertaining to easements that is flexible, that allows you to take into account different size roads, different traffic patterns," he said. "For instance, I would think a dead-end road wouldn't require the size of easement you would on a well-traveled road."

Purcell also said a large-scale paving project would benefit the economy.

"We could save citizens money and put local people to work," he said. "That would be a win-win for everybody."

Many opponents of an accelerated paving program say the cost of maintaining the newly constructed roads would be too high. Purcell said the unpaved roads are already costing the county money and maintenance costs for the new roads should be included in the loan.

"There's maintenance cost on all roads," he said. "Right now you have a lot of maintenance costs with dust control, a lot of maintenance costs for gravel. A lot of people don't realize gravel roads require a lot of upkeep."

Commissioner Paul Koeper, a civil engineer before serving on the commission, said it costs about $138,000 a mile to pave and another $75,000 a mile to prepare a road for paving, which includes widening, tree removal and cutting ditches. He said he sees the positives and negatives to an accelerated paving program.

"It will cost a lot of money," Koeper said. "There is maintenance, but a good road should not require maintenance until it is 10 years old. As more roads get paved through Prop 1 money, more money is spent on maintaining."

Koeper said gravel roads do require frequent maintenance and contribute to dust in the air, particularly in dry summers, but they are still less expensive to maintain. He said it costs $50 a ton for hot mix, an ingredient used in paving, while a ton of gravel costs $6.

Koeper also said some people like living on gravel roads.

Purcell said he is hopeful the commission will look into an accelerated program after the first of the year, once the county has a new presiding commissioner.

Both candidates for the office have said while it is a nice idea, accelerated paving is a matter of cost.

"I am not one to go out and spend money that we don't have," Democratic candidate Pat Wissman said. "Plus, then we've got the upkeep on those. So not only would you have the money you've borrowed to make the roads, then you've got to borrow money for the upkeep. It's a nonending cycle of borrowing and paying back."

Republican Clint Tracy also said any paving will be a matter of money.

"I think that's going to be dependent on our budget," he said. "Upkeep and maintenance -- that is all a function of money and not what you'd like to do necessarily."

cbartholomew@semissourian.com

243-8600