It has been at least twelve years in the State of Ohio since there has been an increase in funding for roads and bridges and it has made it difficult for counties to maintain them.
Allen County Engineer, Brion Rhodes holding the department's annual Summer Roads Program thanking township trustees and village administrators for their continued cooperation and efforts to do more with less. Rhodes says the state gas tax has not increased since 2005 and the federal not since 1993. Funding for road and bridge projects comes from the gas tax and license plate fees. As those have stayed stagnate, costs have not. In 2000, the cost to pave a mile of road was $25,000 and in 2016 it was $70,000 a mile. To compensate, the department works hard to find funding to fill the gaps.
"So we have to pull our resources together as much as we can, share our services as much as we can, and try to get the best prices we can. $1.9 million is the total amount for our road program, but realistically the county alone, not the twelve townships, but just the county alone should be spending about $2.5 million just to maintain the roads that we have. That's the state that we're in," said Rhodes.
A total of just under 16 miles of roads will be seeing work done to them. There will be both chip and seal along with asphalt paving. Commissioners now just have to approve the program.
