BARTLESVILLE, Okla. — “Kick the Dust Up,” a Luke Bryan song says. It’s pretty easy to do that on a few stretches of roads in Bartlesville.
TAKE A LOOK
A haze of dust floats over Madison Road, as cars drive through gravel.
“It’s like a dust storm,” Charlie Harris said, while 2 News listened to her thoughts.
Crews are in the midst of a handful of projects to preserve pavement on various roads around Bartlesville. Workers are laying down one layer of material after another, and one of those layers involves gravel; making usually smooth city streets into gravel roads … at least temporarily.
“It’s awful. Like I can barely see when I’m driving, like, it’s like a real problem. I think it’s an issue for me,” Harris said.
City Engineer Micah Siemers says the rain is to blame.
“There’s been a few times,” he’s seen significant stretches of rain, “but it’s not quite been like this,” Siemers said.
The stats back it up. The Mesonet site at nearby Copan recorded 28.12 inches of rain from April through June; mucking up Bartlesville's plans for several miles of road construction.
Some portions of the work require stretches of dry weather, but the significant rainfall has caused delays.
“They were supposed to wrap up the entire project, kind of middle of July, and now we’re looking at a middle of August timeframe, so we’ve lost just about a month,” Siemers said.
2 News listened to Harris’ response.
“That’s crazy though. I think that’s ridiculous. It should already be done,” Harris said.
Anyone would hope the same. Unfortunately, the city’s hands are tied.
“I’m really hoping for a more typical July and August. Maybe rain every couple weeks instead of every two or three days,” Siemers said.
Siemers said Frank Phillips Blvd. was on the docket for work. The recent delays, however, have prompted discussions to save Frank Phillips Blvd. for another time.
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