Steamboat Pilot & Today

Steamboat Springs — The Routt County Board of Commissioners authorized District 3 Assistant Road Foreman Scott Belton on Tuesday to spend an extra $294,000 this summer to patch sections of deteriorating roads like Routt County Road 14/River Road from the Brooklyn neighborhood of Steamboat Springs to Stagecoach and C.R. 64/Seedhouse Road where it leads from the Clark area toward popular wilderness trails.

“It’s a question of spend it today or spend it tomorrow,” board Chairman Doug Monger said.

Marti Hamilton and Tim Winter, of county purchasing, along with Routt County Road and Bridge Department Field Coordinator Tammie Crawford presented the commissioners with a plan to purchase 6,962 tons of asphalt at $70 per ton, resulting in an expenditure of $487,340.

The additional $294,000 would bring the summer budget to a little more than $780,000.

County Manager Tom Sullivan pointed out that an unusually wet summer in 2011 limited asphalt patching operations and that a corresponding amount of money remains in the Road and Bridge fund.

“There was very little patching accomplished last year because of the high water,” Sullivan said. “We’re asking, ‘Can we do more than what we have in the budget’” this year?

Belton told the commissioners that there are stretches of C.R. 14 that need a complete repair and that spending money on patching might not be money well spent. But there are several other sections of road — including from the end of the bike trail to Steamboat Pines, and from C.R. 16 to Henderson Hill passing entrances to Stagecoach State Park — where patching is needed.

“River Road is an important road to me,” Belton said. “That would be one I’d really like to see done.”

Similarly, the stretch of C.R. 64, which passes a number of homes, needs at least 500 tons of patching material but would be in much better shape with 1,200 tons, Belton said.

The commissioners said that rather than approving every stretch of road to be repaired in the county system, they would leave it to Belton to put the asphalt where it would do the most good.

To reach Tom Ross, call 970-871-4205 or email tross@SteamboatToday.com