Glasgow Road in Fairfield under construction, expect delays

FAIRFIELD – Fairfield and the surrounding countryside have become the land of detours this spring.

Glasgow Road is serving as the detour for East Burlington now through October while the Crow Creek Bridge is being replaced on the east edge of Fairfield. Residents who have been factoring in those extra five minutes for the detour should plan on factoring in another 10 because Glasgow Road is now also under construction.

Since Monday, April 29, Glasgow Road from the city limits of Fairfield to Osage Avenue has been reduced to a single lane of traffic with a pilot car. Jefferson County Engineer DeWayne Heintz said a contractor is patching portions of the road. Heintz said he realizes the work is occurring at an unfortunate time because of the extra traffic on Glasgow, but there was no way around it. He said the patching could last as little as one week.

“This is not the sort of thing we could have waited on,” Heintz said. “We have a lot of deterioration in the county, and we need to stay on top of it or we’ll lose it.”

Heintz said the county and city try to coordinate their road construction projects so they don’t overlap, but that was impossible this time because the city’s reconstruction of Crew Creek Bridge is going to last six months.

“Ours is a short-term project in the middle of a long-term detour. There was no handy way to work around it,” he said.

Heintz said the contractor is using equipment that it shares with another crew, so whenever that piece of equipment is available, the contractor has to jump at the chance to use it.

“The downside of that is that it makes it difficult for us to give timely notification to folks commuting,” he said.

Heintz said the county’s patching needs are so desperate that it has no choice but to let the contractor work when it can.

“We ask that the public be understanding and patient,” he said. “If [the contractor] has equipment availability, they should be able to get it knocked out this week.”

When asked if motorists should plan on taking another detour to avoid Glasgow Road, Heintz said one option is to take Walton Road east to Nutmeg Avenue and then south to Business 34 and then onto Highway 34 if they desired. That would avoid both the construction on East Burlington and Glasgow, but it would require taking gravel roads.

Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com