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Washington Evening Journal
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Washington, IA 52353
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Asphalt overlay coming to B Avenue this summer
City expects to spend entire year’s road improvement budget on half-mile project
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WASHINGTON — An asphalt overlay project on B Avenue in Washington this summer will expend all of Washington’s annual funding for pavement improvements, after the low bid came in above-budget.
At $282,165, the bid for an asphalt overlay project on B Avenue between Madison and Tyler Street outsizes the city’s $200,000 budget for asphalt projects in Fiscal Year 2026, and makes a considerable dent in the $100,000 originally allocated for chip and seal roadwork.
“We’ve been doing chip and seal, we haven’t been doing asphalt, we’re behind on that,” City Administrator Joe Gaa said. “I just want to be really clear that this will be the only street project we do this year.”
While the project’s contract isn’t signed and does not yet have a specific start date, Gaa said it would finish by Aug. 15, before next school year begins. While the roadwork will require temporary closures on parts of the road, the city administrator said they would be minimal, lasting only “a few hours.”
The route is a main corridor to Washington High School from much of the city’s west and north neighborhoods, and city officials expect traffic there to grow considerably this fall as the school building opens its middle school wing, replacing the former location for grades 6-8 on Fourth Avenue, which was constructed in 1918.
While expensive, Mayor Millie Youngquist said the planned asphalt was badly needed after years of sewer work have left the hilly, half-mile stretch of B Avenue in relative disrepair. Large cracks are visible in the pavement, and some areas of the road are noticeably patched with gravel.
“It’s going to be, I think, a great improvement, especially with the opening of the new middle school,” Youngquist said. “We just decided, instead of doing little patches here and there, to do a large stretch, and we had the money in our budget for it. I think this is going to be a positive thing, and in coming years, we’ll budget more for this type of thing.”
Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com
