Patchwork begins in Washington

East and westbound traffic on East Washington Street is down to one lane each, as contractors perform concrete patching expected to finish Nov. 1. (Kalen McCain/The Union)

WASHINGTON — Contractors began concrete patching on East Washington Street and South Second Avenue in Washington Monday, limiting east side traffic to one lane in and out of town via Highway 92.

“They went through and identified the areas that need the most help, that have deteriorated to the point where something had to be done,” Iowa DOT District 5 Residential Construction Engineer Darrick Bielser said. “We are patching out those areas.”

Bielser said the project was expected to last until Nov. 1, citing a contractor’s estimate as of Tuesday morning.

The project will patch one lane at a time going each direction, so as not to block any roads entirely.

“We’re not closing the road,” Bielser said. “We want minimal disruption of traffic possible.”

Portland Cement Concrete (or PCC) patching aims to address cracked surfaces before water and seasonal changes can cause more disruptive damage. While it won’t fix every crack in the road, Bielser said the $256,845 project — funded entirely by state dollars — would prevent blowups for now, which would otherwise require worse road closures to fix.

“There will be, probably, some people who say, ‘Well, why’d you do this patch and not that patch,’” he said. “We have a finite amount of money, and we can only get the most critical patches for now. So we do what we can with the amount of funds we have available.”

While it’s inconvenient, Bielser said timely patchwork was the best long-term solution.

“Water will just get inside those cracks, and it just exasperates the problem,” he said. “We can reseal the cracks, but those are only a Band-Aid because it doesn’t structurally fix the issue. We have to actually remove the concrete when it gets too bad, and fix it that way.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com