Cash-poor states, localities let roads go to gravel

In the face of dwindling local budgets and rising asphalt prices, some states and local communities are opting for gravel over repaving. "The paved roads that finally brought rural America into the 20th Century are starting to disappear across the Midwest in the 21st," Pam Louwagie of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports. "Some engineers estimate it costs up to $300,000 to replace a mile of paved road surface now. Gravel isn't free, but it's far less expensive." (Star-Tribune photo by Pam Louwagie)

Louwagie writes, "In states like South Dakota and Michigan, the reversions are bringing substantial changes to the landscape." In South Dakota "a state transportation official estimated that 120 miles of pavement have been ground up or left to crumble back to gravel" and "Michigan has changed more than 100 miles of pavement to gravel."

In Freeborn County, Minnesota, Sue Miller, the county engineer, "helped launch a study with the state Local Road Research Board to come up with alternatives, including "putting additives into gravel to make it harder and more durable and building stronger road bases that can use just a thin layer of pavement," reports Louwagie. However as County Commissioner Glen Mathiason told Louwagie, "Gravel won't sit well with residents."

When Tony and Gertie Monat of Lansing, Iowa, lost the paved road in front of their house, they lost one of the principal attractions that brought them there. "We definitely miss the hard surface," Gertie Monat told Louwagie. "I'm like, how can you take that away now?"