Residents might experience short delays as they travel several streets in Ironton for the next month, but when the city’s $450,000 repaving project is completed, smoother streets will be the reward.

Thursday, July 27, 2000

Residents might experience short delays as they travel several streets in Ironton for the next month, but when the city’s $450,000 repaving project is completed, smoother streets will be the reward.

Mountain Enterprise, an Ashland, Ky.-based paving company, has been hired by the city to put new pavement on Ironton’s streets. The project has been funded by recent federal and state grants, Ironton Mayor Bob Cleary said.

"This project is the biggest street paving project the we can recall in the city’s history," Cleary said. "Empowerment Zone funding provided the city the matching funds we needed to secure the grant to repave the streets. We will be having $450,000 to $500,000 worth of paving done throughout the city."

The Ironton-Huntington, W.Va. Empowerment Zone federal grant has provided the area with a 10-year, $100 million grant to improve the two cities in an effort to attract businesses.

"Because of the Empowerment Zone funding and the state grant, this entire project will be done at no cost to the citizens of Ironton," Cleary said. "The really unique aspect of this project is that we are able to have the existing pavement milled (or stripped) – which allows us to preserve, and in many cases, restore, the original curbs and gutters running along the streets."

The milling of the old pavement will strip asphalt down to the original street and allow the city to restore the curbs that have been covered by many layers of previous resurfacing, he added.

"In the past, the city couldn’t afford to mill the streets the way it should have been done because the cost to do that is almost as much as the paving," he said. "The millings from the streets will be stock-piled and the city can actually use it later to fill holes in alleyways or any kind of unpaved roadway we have and save the city money on buying gravel and slag. The entire project should be completed in four to six weeks depending on the weather."

General superintendent Kenneth Dillion said the project has been well-planned by city officials and, pending good weather, should be completed on a timely basis.

"As long as the good weather holds out, we will be finished in about a month," he said. "People traveling through the city shouldn’t be held up any longer than five minutes or so and they need to be aware of the signs and cones we will have displayed. We will do our best to work with the public and make it as safe as we can. Those who are real patient shouldn’t have any trouble."