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Rob:
Welcome to our podcast. All about the car brought to you by Schierl Tire and Service. I'm your host, Rob Hoffman, an auto service specialist with over 44 years of industry experience. On the ride with me today, our regular guest Bryan Call a 40 year veteran of the automotive industry. Hello Brian.
Bryan:
Hey Rob. Great to be with you.
Good to have you back. And Bill Schierl, a guy that's logged a lot of miles behind the wheel and always has a lot of great questions. Welcome back, Bill.
Bill:
Hi, Rob. Glad to be in the car.
Today is a very special podcast as we're on location at the Portage County Highway Department and sitting with us is Nathan Check. Nathan's our highway commissioner. Nathan, hat sounds pretty important. Thanks for being here.
Nathan:
Well, I Appreciate the invite. Thank you Rob.
Well, thanks for hosting it. We're actually on location at the Portage county highway department. Well, let's hop in buckle up and hit the road. Like I usually do. I always kind of head back in time and dig up some history. And this time on the Wisconsin highways. What I found under the Wisconsin department of transportation is that in the mid fifties, Wisconsin adopted a bare pavement policy for the state highways. Simply the policy meant that every effort would be made to keep the highways clear of snow and ice through the entire winter season to make this happen, plows needed to operate continuously through a snowstorm to keep them clear and applying sodium and calcium chlorides. In the winter of 73, 74, the plan was modified because of a nationwide energy crisis. The changes included creating three separate classes of highways with three separate plowing and ice control policies. Now, Nathan, how, if at all, has this all changed today?
Well, every season's different definitely with winter maintenance, but the D.O.T. Still does have priority routes and different roadway categories based on the amount of traffic that they see and the level of service that they wanna provide. So there definitely is a different expectation in Portage county for roads such as I 39 or U.S. Highway 10, compared to some of the two lane state roads. And then from the county system, it's the, the same thing that we've got our primary routes, which would be our salted routes that we provide a higher level of service and more clearing. And then we have secondary routes that really focus on Hills curves and intersections, and most of those receive a sand treatment versus salt. So on our lower volume county roads, you will see some snow and ice pack possibly throughout the winter season that they're not cleared from fog line to fog line.
So does that also, the city then gets involved with that, or do you have ever conversations where, you know, a county road comes into a city road and that that road has a different policy?
Not so much on the, the county roads. So any of the county roads with located within the, the city or the villages we maintain those roadways throughout. So county HH is a good example that would run through city of Stevens Point, Village, of Plover, Village of Whiting where we would plow that entire route. It's more of the side streets that would connect and from a, a county or a state standpoint, we really don't get into what the local should be providing for a level of service.
So you Gotta always figure out what kind of road it is if you're gonna complain about it.
Correct.
So you don't get any complaints, do you ?
depends on the day, but yeah, from a roadway standpoint in Portage county just looking at our roadway system, we do have our state roads, which would be the interstate, the us highway system, and any of the state trunk highways. So those are typically numbered. So the I 39s are the state highway 49s. Then we drop down to the county system. Those would be all your lettered roads. So the county As and Zs and double Zs, and then your local street, which would have the main street north second street whatever boulevards there may be. So if you have a roadway concern, it really is important to take a look at what name is on the, the road sign. And if it's a letter or number, definitely call the county highway department as we perform the maintenance on the state system, but any the local roads you'd be talking to your town village or city with any of those concerns.
Well, that's very helpful information.
I had previously talked about the sodium and calcium chlorides. Does that hold true today? Is that the same product that you use today?
So in Portage county, we primarily use sodium chlorides versus any sort of additives or calcium chloride on the state system. It is a straight road salt that we pre-wet with salt brine, which is salt and water. Basically, there are other counties that are experimenting with different additives that have organics and have magnesium chloride or calcium chloride that would help reduce that freezing point and also has more of residual effect. It stays on the road longer, but for Portage County right now what you see is applying is straightly strictly rock salt with salt brine.
So when we say salt, it's just that simple. Excellent. So how do you know, and this is probably a big question, but how do you know how much salt to have on hand at the beginning of each season? Are you just that good at forecasting? Are you and your team that good?
We'd like to think we are, but we can't control mother nature. So we've got some restrictions. Of course, one is salt storage. We have both state and county salt storage here, as well as there's a state satellite storage out in junction city off of I 30 or us highway 10, I'm sorry. And highway 34. So it comes down to how much can you store? We have an annual contract through the state's vendor, how much we're required to buy. So we're guaranteed to buy a certain amount. And then we have a reserve amount that we don't necessarily need to buy, which is 20% of our order. That gives us a little bit of a buffer. So it's really playing the game on how much salt that we typically use versus how much can we store. And if we don't buy our guaranteed amount, we're paying storage fees at their docks, which is very expensive. So ultimately we look at our 10 year averages look at our highs and our lows. Can we buy enough to make sure that we have our worst year ever yet have enough storage if we need it? If we have a very light year, like last year. So there's a number of counties ourselves included that were really scrambling to make sure we had enough storage last year with the light winter, which is a very positive thing from an environmental and from a cost standpoint that you may not even think about, but we do have limited storage here for our salt.
And those facilities are usually what you see as the cone shaped building that have oftentimes sand or sometimes salt piled outside.
Sure. So we've had four different salt sheds on site, and those may be the domes or are more look like more like a barn structure. So there's fabric structures, there's, there's all kinds of different structures out there that store those valuable materials out of the elements.
Gotta take care of that salt.
Exactly.
It's crucial to safety on the highways.
So does the salt go bad moisture and stuff get in there? Does it...
Moisture can, we've had discussions with our, our salt as we've had some lighter years here and some conservation practices that we've had salt in back of our sheds that haven't seen sunlight or the roads for four or five years. And there is some compaction on it, but ultimately we've found that we haven't had much issues with the older salt, as long as it's quality salt coming from the docks without a lot of impurities we've had good luck storing the salt for a number of years.
How does it arrive just by dump truck?
By dump truck. Some municipalities may be getting it by rail, but primarily all our deliveries are by dump truck.
It's gotta be a lot of dump trucks.
I was gonna say.
That's what I'm thinking.
To build up for the season. When do you start receiving salt?
Well, you can start receiving salt in summertime if you have the available loaders, but with our equipment, typically our loaders are out our maintenance and construction projects. So we typically schedule our salt deliveries here in November as we have that transition period. But our goal is always to have a couple thousand tons extra throughout the year, because as we've experienced a couple years ago with the April blizzard, you never know when that next big event is gonna come. So our goal has always been to have at least half a shed full for those events. And we have had instances then when municipalities have ran out too, that we end up selling to them to give them a buffer. So we're very fortunate here in Portage county that we do have some robust storage facilities that while it is a concern and something we need to evaluate every year, we usually have a pretty big buffer range on what we can store versus what we apply.
We do have a link in our website at all about the car podcast dot com from the Wisconsin, D.O.T. On winter road maintenance. And they say, this is everything you wanted to know. So make sure you check that out. Nathan, we're gonna shift gears just a bit here. You mentioned a blizzard, so we all know it's not a matter of if it's a matter of when, what are you and your team's biggest challenges during and after a blizzard. What's the number one thing that stands out in your mind.
New Speaker:
Number one, concern and wild card for us is always the traveling public. So even with retirements, new employees, training, all those things, our operators, our supervisors that are here, winter maintenance is their priority, is their concern is, is what they're here for. We've got employees that sleep with their boots on mm-hmm that are waiting for that call to get in that truck and clear the roads. They know their section. They know their truck winds can definitely play tricks on us here and, and create difficult conditions. But we've got very good equipment. That's well maintained by our mechanics, but at the end of the day, the biggest wild card that we have out there is the traveling public. And that's the awareness. That's the speeds. That's the distracted drivings
While you're out maintaining.
While we're out maintaining it's not every storm, but we have multiple hits every season from vehicles, semis, you know, hitting our trucks sometimes, which leads to a disabled truck, which now you're pulling that operator and that truck off their route. Now we're finding a reserve truck, a reserve driver that road may not see a plow now for another hour and those severe events, which can lead to some pretty significant changing conditions. So it really is for us in, this is a common theme. Whether if it's winter maintenance, summer maintenance or construction is the biggest wild card and concern that we have out there is the traveling public and their awareness, because we can put as many flashing lights, we can put as many cones. We can put as many drums out there, but if their eyes are now looking at their cell phone, check, their fantasy football score or their message from one of their siblings, they're not paying attention to what's in front of them. And that really is a struggle out there for our crews and it's getting worse and worse.
And is that a, a strike from the rear usually, or from the side?
From the semi hits it's more from the side, them crowding our plows and, or taking off mirrors or, or they're hitting the wings. We've had rear end collisions where cars have right into the back of our trucks. We've had cars try to pass our vehicles, which then lose control. And then we up hitting them from the side or the front. So there's no distinctive pattern, but it really, really is a concern of ours.
With a car approaching from the back of a snow plow in a, in a blizzard condition, let's say where it's hard to see what's the right thing for our drive to do?
Really take your foot off the gas and slow down, state law does require 200 feet separation distance between a snow plowing and the driver 35 mile, an hour roads and greater. So there is laws out there to help prevent this and that's to help them have vision in front of them, as well as for our driver to see them in their mirrors, to know that they're back there as much as we try to minimize our backing movements, every route we're required to do some backing in. And if we can't see you in our mirrors, the driver definitely can't see you.
Is there any situation that you can pass a plow or are you not supposed to be passing a plow ever?
There's no specific state law that prohibits passing a plow. I think it really comes down to common sense. And if our plows are out there plowing snow off the road, there's a good chance that the roads are in poor condition and that you should be reducing your speed anyways. And when it comes down to it, if you're plowing our plows, which maybe plow typically around that 25 mile an hour range, their sections are typically shorter. There's a chance they're gonna be pulling over soon or matching up with somebody that will give you an opportunity to maybe go a little bit faster, but what you may gain by passing that plow, you may lose by sitting in the ditch for an hour, waiting for a tow truck.
Makes sense. Cause they always, I will say they are always, you know, like throw a little snow in either direction. So...
Correct. And even with some of our one-way plows that are formed to throw snow directly off with light events, like last night that snow is blowing everywhere. Even just off the tires, it's gonna be blowing and create that vision issue.
You know, what's always impressed me is we have a section of highway just east of Stevens Point Wisconsin. That's I believe four lane with a center turn lane. And when the plows make an effort to clear that at one time the plows are lined up, staggered is what I call, how the heck is that done? You've gotta have some training involved with that. You know what I'm talking about, right. Nathan?
Yes. So we do some tandem plowing for that particular section. We can use up to five different plows just to clear that center turn lane out and then get the snow all the way over to the outside of the road. When it comes down to training, then ultimately communication. And, and that is one thing that our radio chatter is always constant because these drivers really rely on each other and supervisors and, and everybody on board to have that communication with doing something as major as that, we also rely on our Sheriff's office and state patrol who are great partners out there for winter maintenance. And again, as just people with the traveling public, as you again, think about this. And if it's whether, if it's passing that plow, picking up that speed or distracted drive driving, and now that you're in the ditch or the median, you put yourself at risk, but now you're putting that tow truck driver at risk. You're putting that police officer at risk, your Sheriff's deputy at risk. That's responding to that accident during these poor weather conditions. So really take care of yourself by putting your cell phones down, eliminate the distractions and take your foot off the gas.
Every time I see that staggered operation, I always think of the blue angels I always think of how well they do together. And it's just communication it's teamwork. And it's just absolutely amazes me, which comes down to training. I would think there's probably a lot of, how do you train your plow operators? I mean, there's gotta be a, you must have a format or a schedule for training for these folks that are coming into this business.
Sure. So all of our hires are required to have their CDL. So most of the drivers do have some truck driving experience, but now throw a, a plow, two wings, an underbody, a spreader, sanders, everything else on it. It's, it's a whole different ballgame. Of course. So our typical training is a minimum of 40 hours and that's windshield time and driving time with experienced drivers. And then ultimately there's a sign off by one of our supervisors to ensure that that they're on the roadway. Through that rotation. We really focus on starting them out on the lower volume roads. We're not gonna have that much exposure to traffic and then working all the way up through the, the state system because plowing some of our, our secondary county roads are a whole different ballgame. And of course I, 39 with the amount of traffic or highway 10 every year, we do have a snow plow rodeo, which there's actually a course that we drive through and they get scored points. And then breakout sessions too on things such as sanders, safety lockout, takeout, those types of things that, you know, we need to touch base on every year, but with the work shortage and with retirements, and we have a number of new employees that are going through this, and it really is a, a commitment for them because of the amount of skill you need to be out there on the road with amount of speed and traffic that's out there.
I just can't imagine the amount of controls in that cab.
Yeah. So just thinking about the controls. So on our state trucks, we have double wings, right annd left. You've got the wing control, you've got plow off, plow down plus rotation, the hoist up and down because our trucks don't have conveyor belts in order to get salt back to the spreader. They need to lift up the box, which at that time they're worried about power lines and trees. We've got under bodies, which help with scraping the ice. That's an up down and rotation movement plus pressure control. We've got our spreader control, which is the amount of salt you're putting out at any time. That then drops down to a spinner, which we control that speed as well. Try to get our salt right down on the center line. So it's not bouncing off on the ditch. Our pre-wet control. We wet the salt before it hits the road. So it reduces the balance and activates it sooner while all trying to keep this plow truck with this big hunk of steel plow in the center of the road. So there is a ton going on in that cabin. When we show people the controls that our operators need to operate every day, they're truly amazed on what goes into it.
I can't Imagine.
Oh, takes a much better man than myself, for sure. I just can't imagine what that cockpit looks like. okay. As with every all about the car podcast, we always break away on a Wisconsin road trip and we always look for interesting destinations. This time we've chosen to travel to the national railroad museum in Green Bay, Wisconsin, let's hop in and go for a ride. So what family and young children don't like trains, everybody loves trains. It's just, it's part of our history, it's part of our past. And we have just a gem right here in Wisconsin in Green Bay called the national railroad museum. So it's a national location museum.
And it was founded in 1956 or there was something about that dates back that far.
So this has been around a while and the good part about that. They've had a lot of opportunities and chances to collect some pretty cool railroad, memorabilia and engines.
Have you ever been there?
I have not been there, but I have plans to do so.
That is awesome. I'm I'm actually gonna be in Green Bay for a celebrate a family celebration. I'm gonna go this weekend.
Nice. You're gonna have to report back to us for sure.
I will report back.
Sounds like a lot of the displays and a lot of the engines and railroad cars and such are under the roof inside. So this can be done year round, summer, and or winter. In the summer there's some additional opportunities that are happening outside and it's not really that expensive to go. Adults are 13 and older or 11 dollars. Seniors. Yeah. Hey, that puts I'm in the senior area. So I'm nine bucks. I can finally get a discount. Yeah. And children are seven$7.50 and under two are free. So it's a family event for sure. And like I said, what child or what kid doesn't like railroad, you know?
I mean, they recommend it can take up just generally couple hours. If you know, wanna spend all day there. You can also do that. So it's, there's railroad rides that you can get into training, go in the summer and maybe not so much in the winter, but then there's other events that take place throughout the winter on their website, which is national R R museum.org. Nice. Brian, have you ever been there?
Brian:
I have not been there. One of the things that they used to do, I don't know if they still do it is offer the railroading merit badge for boy Scouts. And you could actually camp overnight right in the museum this past summer, my daughter was in a wedding that was held right on grounds and the pictures are just fantastic.
That's awesome. Have you ever heard of this, Nathan?
No, but I've got a nine and 12 year old. Which I definitely think would be interested and that's not that far of a drive so...
No.
Well they say over a hundred thousand visitors annually. So I think we can be a part of that for sure. Well, let's head back to the Portage County Highway Department and we've got Nathan Check here, our location expert, and we're just kind of picking his brain on all that's involved with Portage County highway maintenance and keeping us safe on our highways.
So I got a question. How did the drivers get to their snow plow in these big blizzards that are 8, 10, 12 inches?
Sure. So all of the, the plow trucks in Portage County, we have one centralized shop for our location, which is here in Plover, which has got great access of course, with I 39 highway 10 just to the north of us. But in those big snow events, they're typically leaving an hour or two before they need to get here. We've had plenty of employees spend the night sleepover on cots as well. And we've really try to, to minimize those full plow routes at 16, 18 hours max. But these employees are, are out there for that full time. And then we will run a, a second shift or a third shift for that matter, from a timing standpoint on the I 39 and highway 10 systems. So as I mentioned, there's some roads that have different categories and those are our 24 hour priority routes that we need to have service on them during those big events. But it's not just again, the 16 or 18 hours in the plow route, as you mentioned, it's them trying to get here.
Exactly. What is the snowplow driver drive for a personal vehicle?
I know what you're thinking. You saw a commercial long, long time ago...
Back in the seventies,
What where were they driving?
I thought it was a Volkswagen.
I thought it was a Volkswagen as well. I'm thinking in this day and age, it's an all wheel drive SUV or it's a big four wheel drive pickup truck.
It's interesting that they're staying overnight or camping out here beforehand. That's some commitment.
Or that's again, our who's here. This is, this is their priority. We're definitely a full service highway shop from a maintenance and construction standpoint. But winter maintenance does have a significant effect on safety and economy too. There's a lot of freight and everybody wants their, their UPS or Amazon deliveries, of course, before the holiday seasons and our crews that are out there are, are a big part of making that happen.
One question, and then maybe this isn't placed correctly at this point, but one question I have, is there such thing as snow blindness, do you ever have to deal with that? I remember when I was growing up, you'd hear about this quite a bit with the snow plow drivers during a big storm.
Sure. So it can be for our drivers, of course, and with being in central Wisconsin, especially in that Southern part of the county where we got a lot of large open fields and high wind conditions that are picking up snow from possibly a mile or two around. And again, last night was a perfect example of where we've got essentially a light dusting without a lot of moisture in it that even wheel tracks, even your tires are kicking up that snow and creating that cloud. We can have snow blindness coming off our plow itself from snow kicking off all of our new trucks. Now we switched from having front wings in the front of the trucks that help wing off additional snow. I'm actually move those to a mid to rear Mount, which helps with some of that effect of not having snow come over the wing. But then also for drivers, again, as we're plowing, it's just inevitable that we're gonna be kicking up some snow dust and creating that, that cloud. So when you see that big cloud, there's a good chance. There's a truck in the middle of it, even with all the L E D lights and everything else. We have, we have instances again where if you can't see that truck, but you see big cloud there's chances there's either semi a car or one of our trucks within it. So definitely slow down.
I've seen those times where you see that cloud and that's all you see, you don't even see the flashing lights through it. So all of our drivers need to be aware of that, for sure. You know, we've spent a lot of time on the snow removal and wintertime maintenance that you do here outta your facility. Nathan.
Are you gonna segue into the second Wisconsin season?
And what is that Brian?
Road, construction.
Road construction.
I gotta believe you do a lot more than just winter, and it's probably the biggest event of your year, but what else do you do? What else is your team and you do when it comes to the highways and roads. You're talking about spring, where things get soft, Brian, as you mentioned, the construction season, what's your involvement here with all that?
So Portage County is a, a full service highway department. So any roadway and maintenance, construction, and, and bridge maintenance activities as well we'll perform. So essentially the only thing we won't perform or don't have the capacity to do would be any full bridge replacement projects, but shouldering, crack filling sign replacements, chip sealing is a big part of our pavement preservation. You'll see is out there. The roadside mowing for visibility, for deer and brush control, all those things, our county crews perform.
You also remove roadkill?
Correct for any roadkill on the state highways system, there's actually a state contract. So that would be a private contractor. Anything on the county system our crews would perform.
I have a new respect for this team.
Yes.
I always wondered who picked that roadkill stuff up. .
How do they pick it up? When the animal may be smeared?
We're pretty fortunate here in Portage County to be more of a rural setting. So one of the, the things allowed by the DNR and then the OT guidelines is actually roadside abandonment. So we can pull it off to the right of way if there's not any residences nearby and kinda let mother nature take its course, if not, it may a multi crew effort to try to get those pieces picked up.
That is helpful to know because there's often times I, now I understand why there might be a deer in the ditch and letting nature take its course.
So the other thing with all this maintenance construction activities, we also have a full service job in parts room that we maintain. And that's nine staff really keeping this fleet up and running that we self-perform vast majority of our work on our fleet.
Outta your shop do you service the county, sheriff cars, highway patrol, or things like that?
For the Sheriff's office? We do perform some limited work. They actually have a fleet technician on staff now that performs a lot of the work, but Potage County has our own EMS emergency medical services. And our highway shop will perform all the services on the ambulances for Portage county.
Wow. The jobs are pretty broad here at the Portage County highway department. I'd also pulled up the Portage county highway department capital improvement plan for 2022 through 2027. And it really looks like you've got your work cut out for you. A big picture thing that goes out quite a ways that I would assume that you work on bits and pieces throughout the years.
Sure. So our capital improvement plan gets evaluated every year because conditions change and financing and budgets may change. But it's really taking a look at our long term goals for our roadway system and of course that starts with maintenance and preservation. So trying to preserve what we have for as long as we can, which with a good preservation program, we've really been successful in extending the life of our roads. But then when it gets to a point where it makes no sense, no financial sense to putting more money in a preservation standpoint, then it gets inserted into the capital improvement program. So our capital improvement program would be the resurfacing projects, the reconditioning, where we may be doing some ditching, may level out a hill or realign a curve all the way to full reconstruction. We're really rebuilding that road from right of way to right of way. And that plan is on our, our website. And as I said, we do review it every year with the highway committee and then ultimately through county board, it averages around just over 4 million dollars a year, just strictly for those improvements. And as we see rising costs, when it comes to gravel and asphalt and those things, of course, 4.2 million dollars this year, isn't necessarily gonna buy us 4.2 million dollars in five years. And so that's why it is, is a plan which can be adjusted, but we do have some significant projects coming up 2022. Our major reconstruction project will be county Z east of Polonia that's in the Town of Sharon and New Hope that will be a full reconstruction from right of way to right of way. And then we do have a mill and overlay plan for county HH, which is the old highway 10 from the city of Siemens Point limits heading west out to county P and state trunk, highway 34 north over there by the tank farms.
What's gonna happen on that road. Cause I happen to live in that direction. What was that?
So the county HH project will be a mill and overlay. So it'll be a milling machine. We essentially take the top two inches off of that surface and then we'll pave two inches back. So that project had received a thin overlay over 10 years ago, as part of the D.O.T. Transfer to the county that overlay now is starting to actually show signs of stress and pop off. So we're gonna try to get ahead of it before we start losing major parts of it.
So from, and you said from the city limit,
Correct. So from the Clark street intersection, there there's a little bit of concrete then heading west from there.
Yes .
And then the other major traffic impact for 2022 is as part of our, the D.O.T. Bridge program, we'll be replacing the county Y bridge over Bentley Pond. So that's gonna require a full closure of county Y up near the Northern part of the county.
Thinking about that, it leads me into the question of like when that starts and road restrictions, weight restrictions in the spring. Can you tell us a little bit about like why weight restrictions actually even exist?
Sure. Every year as many of the drivers may notice that there's special signs posted on the county road system limiting the overall weight axle weights on these vehicles and primarily what it comes down to as during that spring season, we've got frost in the ground. So that subgrade and sub base, which would be the gravel underneath the road, providing that support is frozen. Now, the spring comes and that starts the melt and the frost starts to come out well with that introduces moisture into the road bed, which essentially creates a water bed. So we lose our structural support for that roadway system. Now we need to protect it because any of those heavy weights that are essentially pushing down on that water bed is gonna lead to more cracking and pavement distress. So while we fully understand it is inconvenience for people, it really comes down to try and extend the life of our roadway system.
So it is not the heating necessarily, but the pressure downward that cracks, Or is it a little bit of both?
It's a little bit of both when we have variable sub upgrades. So if you have some clays or some silts that as they freeze and thaw, they expand more than a sand would is where you typically would see the heaves. A lot of our dips that you may see in the county road, it's actually where the culvert material that we backfill the culvert is well drained. So it's a gravel or sand that doesn't move, but the rest of the road does, but really it comes down to the, the spring postings is really trying to protect that road, bed and road base just because it is at a very vulnerable spot.
Thank you for that explanation, which leads me to think about like, have we had to deal with the summer heat heating that, you know, like I just think of, I, 39 has had some sections where it just buckled.
Yeah. Last year was a good number of buckles on primarily on highway 54 here and west towards Wisconsin Rapids and then highway 10 east. And we did have some on highway 10 west as well. So whatever those pavement temperatures rise, and again, materials wanna expand when they get heated and if there's enough friction and there's not enough room for them to go, they wanna go up. So we've responded to a good number of pavement buckles last year and we'll continue to do so. It seems more, not necessarily on the newer pavements, it comes into a sweet spot in that age where all of a sudden they start to bind and just you only direction for them to go is up. And unfortunately that's when we've got traffic and it's startling around the 4th of July, mm-hmm everybody's on the road. So again, it comes down to really being aware of your surroundings because you don't know when those, we can't predict where it's gonna occur. We can have our equipment ready when we see the temperatures rising and all those things. But again, we can't predict exactly what section is gonna go at what time.
That's amazing how quickly they can take that unusable road and make it passable.
Yeah, it's typically a multiple step process depending on the severity of it. But our main goal is to get the loose pieces jack hammered out, possibly get some patching material and get that roadway back open. And then we may come back and do more of a semi permanent asphalt patch. And then really, we don't wanna put the, the full concrete patch back in there because the road is still expanding at that point. And if it's at that temperature and other places may pop, and that is actually now a relief spot for it that can push up against,
So you do it's kind of a temporary repair and then come back and...
Correct. So typically in the fall would be the, the permanent repair. And again, the, the temporary repair isn't because we're lazy or don't wanna do it. It's really there. It gives us another relief point in that road because we know it's gonna wanna expand more and it may prevent another buckle just up the road.
Good information to know that exactly. Like why aren't they getting to this? This patch is still there now. It makes total sense.
I'd hate to be that first driver to, to find that buckle, you know, within 20 feet ahead, that's the especially scares me.
Yeah. Especially if you're on a motorcycle.
Oh my gosh. Don't even wanna think about that. So, one thing that I've always been curious about is our state highways, county highways and city highway and road departments. How do you all play together? Is there a lot of communication back and forth is a lot of that assumed how do you work together where the roads meet? So to say
Each situation's different from a state to county relationship though, it's, it's very unique. So it was the state of Wisconsin is the only state in the U.S.in which county highway departments perform all of the state maintenance on their roads. So the state of Wisconsin does not own any plow. Trucks does not do any of their own crack filling or mowing. They do have electricians that would perform work on the street lights or the traffic signals. And they do have some bridge maintenance crews, but the vast majority of what you see out there on the state system is performed by county highway departments. And as we look more regionally and working with our neighboring states as well, we found that this model is very, very cost effective, cuz you're not doubling up on the supervision, you're not doubling up on facilities or equipment. And it's led to in Portage County alone for some of our plow routes to get efficiencies because now we can blend our plow routes. So some of our plow routes are part county roads and part state roads that you really eliminate deadheading and double travel time. So we do have state maintenance coordinators that we're in constant contact. And of course we have a budget that we need to adhere by with them, but it is a unique relationship with the state, from a county to municipal side. I would say that a lot of our interactions is primarily with the towns just because these towns have limited resources and staffing. So we will perform some maintenance and some construction projects for them. And then the, the cities and villages typically have their own staff and they do in, in Portage county and we'll rely on each other for technical expertise, but for the most part, other self-performing their own work.
You know, I think that all of that raises a really good question of understanding some of that, that if anybody listening to this has questions about a roadway to contact the county, or if, whether it's state and be directed, as we said, you know, the road labeling tells you who to call, but to understand the vast work that's done by their county, probably.
Well kinda wrapping up everything that we've talked about and all that you and your team Nathan do here through the Portage County Highway Department. If you could wrap this up for us and give us your words of caution as driving through highway work zones and plowing operations, what would that be?
It really comes down to, again, that driver awareness eliminate the distractions and reduce your speeds, especially in these inclement weather conditions and truly give our crews, give the municipal crews, the respect that they deserve. They're out there trying to make the road safer, ultimately for you and for your deliveries and for your kids to get on the bus and get to school. But with that, they need to be alive in order to do that. And by not giving us enough space by speeding through our work zones, distracted, it's becoming more and more of a concern. We recently just had a fatality within one of our work zones here in Portage county and, and that individual, unfortunately, you know, isn't able to go home to their families and the vast majority of while we're there to protect our workers. But when we look at statistics, when there's a work zone accident, it's not always necessarily our workers that are getting injured. It's the driver and or their passenger and the vast majority of those cases because they're hitting large pieces of equipment, they're hitting them at odd angles. So it really comes down to protecting our workers, but also protecting yourself while you're out on the road. That text message can wait. There's nothing that important that you need to pick up your phone and look at a text when you're driving through a snow storm. If you need to pull over at the next ramp at the next intersection and check it at that point.
Good advice.
Very well said, Nathan. Well, Nathan, we thank you. And your team at the Portage county highway department for all that you do in allowing us a better understanding of your efforts and commitment to safety on our Portage County highways.
Again, greatly appreciate the invite. And if anyone from the public ever wants a tour of our highway shop and our operations you can definitely contact the, the Portage County Highway Department.
Awesome. And we me take you up on that. That's great.
So we hope to have you ride along next time on All About the Car! To listen to previous episodes, find additional resources or to simply send us a message head to all about the car podcast dotcom. We'll see you next time.
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