Work starts on streets

The streets of Moorcroft are getting their much-needed maintenance while staying within budget as the town follows some sound advice.

Public Works Director Cory Allison hired Troy Services, who began soon thereafter by cleaning and sealing the cracks and seal coating on Big Horn Avenue. To ensure that the town’s business district was not adversely affected by the work, only one side of the road on one block was closed at a time with each closure remaining for the mandatory curing time of 24 hours. This facelift of Big Horn is finished this week.

After Big Horn, the crew moves on to seal coat most, if not all, of the remaining asphalt streets that are not already slated to be destroyed for an upcoming project and, says Allison, with any remaining allocated funds, will start crack sealing “the bad stuff” on those roads.

“Ideally,” says Allison, “it’s best to crack seal it first and come over top of it with a seal coat, but I want to make sure we get a seal coat on all these streets.”

He says that whatever cannot be sealed this fiscal year will be addressed under the next budget.

“I’m going to budget in every year to do a couple streets as long as the council will let me. This is something that hasn’t been done for quite a few years and needs to be done so we’re going to get caught up on it,” he says.

While the crew segmented work into block-size bites for the businesses, on residential streets, they will close down one side of the roadway in approximately three-block sections 24 hours at a time to facilitate timely completion.

Allison expresses his approval of Troy’s Services crew so far: “They’ve done a real good job, I’m real happy with it.”

He also strongly advocates the council’s decision to hire the work done per street: “I think it’s going to work well; it’s the best way to spend our money on it. We’re going to be able to get what we need done and not be over budget.”

Allison apologizes for any inconvenience in the coming weeks to the citizens of Moorcroft, “but it has to be done”.

Some residents may have noticed work on the concrete streets on the west side of town; however, that was, in fact, a former contractor affiliated with the last water project who had to return to fix a potential issue with those roadways, states Allison.