Frank Lewis | Daily Times

Roadwork on U.S. 52 by Thursday and is now progressing to other streets around the city.

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FRANK LEWIS

PDT Staff Writer

Portsmouth City Engineering Director Crystal Weghorst has a goal with all the street paving going on this week.

“One thing the mayor and the city of Portsmouth do not want is for people to come and visit our city, or be traveling through, and remember us because our streets are in bad shape. So this is just the first step in trying to get our streets straightened up, hopefully, with the help of City Council. They were very generous this year in what they have allowed us to budget for in our street program. And if they continue to do that then we will continue to get to all of these streets, because there is a lot that needs to be done.”

Weghorst said all of U.S. 52, east and west, is finished with the milling and patching project, and crews are continuing to hit many of the worst street problems in the city. Workers were busy on Seventh Street, Fourth Street, the esplanade area off Chillicothe.

“I’ve got a couple of small alley jobs for them. Prospect Street is milled and ready to be paved; and then they’re going to move to Findlay, Albert, Sunset, 21st,” Weghorst said. “Then we’re going from Waller to Sunrise. We’re going to do a portion of 24th Street, 25th Street. There’s a pretty bad area there about half-way up 25th, down to Grandview. It’s pretty rocky. We’re going to fix that.”

Weghorst said workers will then do Grandview Avenue between 17th Street and Kinney’s Lane. They will move to Mabert Road from 17th Street to U.S. 52, Offnere Street, where a water break has caused problems at the new auto dealership.

“We’re going to get that fixed. Then we’re going to progress south,” Weghorst said. “We’re going to skip over (U.S.) 52, go down under the underpass to Ninth Street. That whole area is going to be paved.”

Weghorst said workers are also doing a drag-patch on the 10th Street bridge on top of underpass.

“We did get a bridge report back this year, and there’s some maintenances that needs to be done to a few of the bridges here within the city limits. We do a bridge inspection every year,” Weghorst said. “So we just decided to go ahead and have then do a drag-patch on the top of the 10th Street bridge, so that our report next year will look good.”

Crews milled Winchester Avenue in Sciotoville earlier in the week, and Weghorst said that street should be getting repaved within a week.

“They’re (crews) moving right along,” Weghorst said. “We’re really happy at the way they’ve handled the traffic situation. We’ve gotten some calls here at the city - no one is really mad about it or anything - they’re just wanting to know how long the delays will be. They (crews) were in and out of (U.S.) 52 in one day. One day is all it took them to mill it up, patch it all and re-open the street.”

Weghorst said in order to get the project done quickly, workers will be working Saturday.

Frank Lewis may be reached at 740-353-3101, ext. 232, or at flewis@heartlandpublications.com