Roads Repaving And Maintenance Initiative

Virtually all island residents, full-time or seasonal, and vacation visitors have opinions on the condition of our roads. The Board of Directors of the Beaver Island Association is pursuing an advocacy role on behalf of our membership to support improving the condition of the roads we all rely on for transportation.

The road subject could encompass both paving and maintenance. The issue of paving versus gravel road surfaces has strong opinions on both sides, but is beyond the scope of the Association initiative. The cost of any additional road paving upgrades is substantial, and would require financing support that would likely need a bond issue at the township level, with local taxes to pay off the debt. Repaving and maintenance of our existing roads, however, is an area where individual citizens and organizations can exert influence.

First, the subject of repaving, specifically repaving of King's Highway: this falls under the authority of the Charlevoix County Road Commission. The Road Commission is overseen by a manager and a three member Board that determines the allocation of county paving funds. Any asphalt paving on Beaver Island is a major undertaking because of the logistics and cost of materials, mixing and application equipment, and work crew, so scheduling more work to be done along with the highway project lowers the unit cost for all involved.

The next repaving of King's Highway is planned to be done in conjunction with paving projects at the public airport, but the timing is uncertain because of the dispute over the value of the property acquired on the west side of the airport. Depending on the settlement of this issue, funding may get used that was intended for the paving projects. Hopefully this will be resolved in a manner that will allow the paving to proceed as early as 2012 or 2013. One way we can help this along is by identifying other private paving projects that could be done at the same time. If any BIA members have been thinking about a paving project (driveway, parking area, tennis court), contact one of the Board members and we will make sure it is included in the list compiled by the townships.

The second area our Association can influence is maintenance of our existing roads. Much dialogue has occurred on the subject of grading and dust control (see the Spring 2010 Road Commission Newsletter, at: http://www.charlevoixcounty.org).

Weather is a major factor, but it is expected that changes to increase clay content in the road gravel mix coupled with application of calcium chloride brine solution should improve dust conditions this year.

An area where our local road crew is limited is grading equipment. In the spring the County sends a road grader to the island to do the initial grading after mud season. The remainder of the summer and fall the only equipment available are truck-mounted grading blades. While the truck blade is effective on many roads (whether a function of gravel mix, traffic and speed levels, road design, shade levels, rain, etc.), it clearly struggles with other roads that at times literally challenged the limits of a vehicle's suspension. Having a road grader available on a more frequent or even full-time basis would provide the equipment to tackle the heavy washboard conditions. We intend to add the voice of our Association to dialogue with the Road Commission to assure current equipment allocation and future capital forecasts fairly include the needs of Beaver Island roads.

–Bob Anderson