County Works to Meet Challenges of Maintaining, Preparing Roads

Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer

Anderson County continues to face the growing challenge of funding road maintenance/repair of the 1,534 miles of county owned roads. To simply maintain the aging roads (still in good enough shape to maintain) - which have never had appropriate levels of funding (always kicked down the road to avoid tax hikes) - would require $8-10 million annually.

This does not include total replacement of roads/bridges which need more than resurfacing. Anderson County has dodged catastrophic road issues due to the mild winters of recent years.

A prolonged hard Winter freeze could do irreparable damage to hundreds of miles of county roads which would have to be replaced. The cost for those projects could be $1 million per=mile to dig up and rebuild.

County Roads and Bridges Manager Matt Hogan discusses the challenges, as well as the county's response time to potholes and replacing and maintaining road signs in this interview with the Anderson Observer.