Sioux City residents raise frustrations over condition of gravel roads

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (KCAU) – Buchanan Avenue is both a paved and gravel road, but with the amount of traffic that passes through, the condition of the roadway has become a safety concern for most residents.

“It’s so washboard-y that you can’t go over a few miles an hour without bouncing to the other side or into the ditch,” resident Pat Loving said.

Residents say most drivers choose to avoid the washboards altogether, creating an even more dangerous roadway.

“Over the years, I’ve had two cars in the ditch upside down in front of my house because they got on the washboards and bounced across the road into the ditch,” Loving said. “The washboards are so bad where 140th meets Correctionville Road that me and a lot of other people drive up the wrong side of the road because it’s smoother.”

“If you go half a mile north, there’s a corner and that’s constantly washboards,” resident john Van Eldik said. “And you’re going around a corner, you can’t control your vehicle, so it’s either go in the other lane, which is not good, or do two miles an hour for a quarter mile to get off this road. It’s just a dangerous, dangerous situation.”

Woodbury County Engineer Mark Nahra says the reason the gravel roads seem worse than usual is due to the dry weather.

“We try to deliver as good quality roads as we can, but right now the weather is working against us,” Nahra said. “It’s great for harvest, but it’s also one of the reasons you’re seeing roads take a little bit of a beating right now because you’ve got a lot of trucks and agriculture equipment running up and down them.”

But the main issue is finding the funds to to pave the roads.

“We have probably 10 to 12 miles of gravel roads that really ought to be in our paved road system,” Nahra said. “It’s just finding that money to get them into that construction phase and get them approved.”

Nahra says now that the dust control season is over, the engineers will be maintaining Buchanan Avenue and surrounding roads twice a week.

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