Daviess County officials have come up with a one of a kind program that will make more roadways available during the spring freeze and thaw. Normally, during that time travel on county roads is limited to loads of 10 tons or less except on designated truck routes with permits. Now, the county is offering businesses along county gravel roads the option of posting a $5,000 cash bond per mile to allow larger loads than 10 tons to travel to them off of the truck routes.
“We reached out and tried to talk with other counties about doing this,” said County Commissioner Nathan Gabhart, who initiated the change in road policy. “As far as I know we are the only county in the state trying this. The others we spoke with are very interested. They want us to get back with them and let them know how it works.”
County officials say that while the change will impact all of the county, the call for the new rules began with the large number of growing mom and pop businesses in the Amish country in Barr and Van Buren townships.
“During the last freeze-thaw I had businesses calling me saying this was costing them $7,000 a week,” said Gabhart. “Some of them were trying to get shipping containers delivered from China. The containers had gone half way around the world and then they were being held up because they couldn’t go over the last half mile over the gravel roads to the business.”
County officials say they had received a lot of pleas and complaints from businesses wanting to use the gravel roads, but the county did not have any way they could open them up.
“This gives them a tool,” said County Highway Superintendent Phil Cornelius. “The way this will work is we will go out and measure and assess the roads before any loads come in. The business will put up its $5,000 bond and we will continue to measure and assess what happens to the road as long as the load limits are in place. If we have to put down new rock and materials that will come out of the bond. The county will do the work. When the load limits come off, we will do a final assessment, get the road back up to where it should be and any money that is left over will go back to the business.”
The new road plan may not work for all of the 100 or more businesses in the Amish country, but at least they won’t be stuck with large loads that they are totally unable to move.
“Most of these businesses began operations out of the house or the barn,” said Cornelius. “Some can plan ahead and get the loads earlier or later, others can get the loads broken down. I do know this impacts a lot of businesses.”
“I think with the new resolution we are starting to get a handle on it,” said Gabhart. “We did side it toward the taxpayer. We will tweak it as any loopholes are exposed. I also want to make it clear that if it turns out there are loopholes that wind up destroying roads that we will do away with it.”
One thing the county will be tweaking in the future is the fine structure for violating the load limits. The county is expected to raise the fines substantially and possibly bring the legal action against both the trucking company and the business that placed the order.
“These fines were written in 1994 and haven’t been changed since then,” said Gabhart.
“Some of the fines would be considerably cheaper than posting the bond. We will revisit those and raise them before we get into that situation in the spring.”
The latest change may be the first of even more that are coming to the county’s roads in general and specifically when the freeze and thaw season moves in.
“I see this latest move as a step in the right direction,” said Gabhart.
“I know load limits stink, but we have to use them to protect the roads. I think we could make some changes on the load limits ordinance tying them to some specific formulas and calculations. Sometimes we take the limits off too quickly to try and get the trucks rolling again. We are trying to work with the businesses in the area and we don’t want to penalize people for being successful. At the same time we can’t penalize the taxpayers because someone decided to build their business on a gravel road. I think we really need to put together a five-year plan for our roads and start looking for more ways to put more money into them.”