Jackson looking toward road improvements
JACKSON TOWNSHIP — As the 2021 roadway improvement season gets underway in the region, the chairman of the Jackson Township trustees provided an update on how the efforts may be shaping up for the coming months.
Trustees’ Chairman Greg Vogt delivered the remarks at the April 6 meeting of the Jackson trustees.
“I think our township roads are in pretty good shape this year,” Vogt said. “I don’t think we’re going to have to do any chip seal.”
Trustee Mark Eshelman asked about East Smiley Avenue, which was identified earlier this year as in need of repairs because of heavy traffic in 2019 following a tornado in the Shelby area. Smiley had been used to help carry traffic around the tornado damage in the region, including the State Route 39 area.
“We had a lot of the state route traffic on that road (Smiley), and it was after we had it chip-sealed,” Vogt said earlier this year in recalling the detour in the tornado’s aftermath.
“They beat that road up pretty good,” he said. “Unfortunately, you don’t have a choice. It was an alternate route to get around when all the trees were down because of the damage from the tornado.”
On April 6, in response to Trustee Eshelman’s question about Smiley road work, Vogt said: “I would like to try crack-sealing.”
Vogt added that he had spoken with a company who uses the method for road upgrades. “He has done work in the past for the township, motor paving, and
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chip-seal.”
Vogt explained the crack-sealing method.
“It’s spread around 400 degrees,” he said of the substance.
“They heat it up to 400 degrees. If your (roadway) crack is a pretty good-size, it’ll go down near the crack and get down to the subgrade. It’ll go down to the base. And it seals.”
“That is something that we could look at doing on Smiley, the edges,” Vogt added. “The places that it is cracking on that section of Smiley, between Plymouthspringmill and (State Route) 96, is about