July 14, 2005

By Robert Mihalek

The Greene County engineer’s office expects to reopen Dayton-Yellow Springs Road this weekend, provided that the weather does not interfere with construction, Bill Trubee, the county highway superintendent, said on Tuesday.

Trubee said that he hopes to have the road accessible to traffic by as early as Friday, July 15. But the reopening of the road could be affected by rain from the remnants of Hurricane Dennis, which is expected to move into the Miami Valley this week.

Trubee said that a “deluge of rain” could slow down construction work on Dayton-Yellow Springs Road, moving the work back into next week.

He also said that some “incidental work” might have to be completed after the road reopens to traffic. The construction crew would control the flow of traffic.

The county engineer’s office has been replacing six culverts, which carry stormwater, on Dayton-Yellow Springs Road, between just west of West Enon Road and East Enon Road, where Yellow Springs’ corporate limits begin. So far, five culverts have been replaced, Trubee said.

However, the last culvert being replaced is also the largest and is 25 feet deep, he said. The other culverts were shallower, and it took one to two days to replace each, he said. In conjunction with replacing the 25-foot culvert, located about a half mile west of East Enon, the county is also improving the shoulders on the road around the area of the culvert, Trubee said.

Work on this last culvert began on June 20, and the engineer’s office had estimated that the replacement project would take four weeks. “Everything’s been coming together pretty well on our estimated time,” Trubee said, adding a cautionary statement about rain delaying the completion of the project.

The county is replacing the culverts on Dayton-Yellow Springs as part of a larger project to repave five miles of the road between East Enon and Trebein, Trubee said. It will take an estimated four to five days to repave Dayton-Yellow Springs, and the road will remain open while it is resurfaced, he said. Trubee said the road would be repaved sometime this month or in August.

He said that the six culverts being replaced, which were placed in the ground in the 1950s, are made of corrugated steel that is now rusted. The county is replacing the culverts with concrete pipes, he said.

Trubee said that Greene County maintains over 2,000 culverts and more than 300 bridges on county roads, and tries to replace an average of 40 to 50 culverts and 8 to 10 bridges a year.