Engineer calls for soil borings of approaches before F-48 is resurfaced

Feedback from the Iowa Department of Transportation has given Jasper County a clearer idea of where a section of the F-48 West resurfacing begins or ends across the bridge near Interstate 80, but the condition of the road is in such disrepair that county engineer Mike Frietsch on Dec. 20 requested soil borings.

“Essentially we start 30 feet from the edge of the bridge on either side is where our county demarcation point is,” Frietsch said. “So that means we have all that approach pavement that’s up across all the ramps, up to within 30 feet of the bridge on both sides. That pavement is in poor shape.”

In fact the conditions are so bad that Frietsch believes it cannot be overlayed with a hot mix asphalt (HMA). He said the pavement is the original concrete or very close to it. Jasper County will have to completely dig out the section, reset the base and essentially redo those sections.

“It would really behoove us to go ahead and get us some soil borings to see what’s going on what’s underneath there to be prepared, to be able to design appropriately, to understand what the underlying soil conditions are and that are maybe contributing to the issues we currently are seeing there,” Frietsch said.

Jasper County had $10,000 set aside for the original agreement with civil engineering firm Snyder & Associates to do storm sewer cleaning around Lambs Grove along F-48. Frietsch said that scope of work only cost the county about $2,529. The work was done in one day and the storm sewer, he said, looks great.

Which leaves money left over to put towards the soil borings, but it is not enough to cover the full cost of $8,500. Frietsch said the money would cover all except $1,029 of the geotechnical engineering services. The county engineer appeared before the board of supervisors to add the services to the agreement.

Frietsch anticipates the resurfacing project’s bid letting to be July or August 2023.

Although the county has answers for the approaches, Frietsch said there are still unanswered questions regarding the nearby ramps leading to and off of Interstate 80. Jasper County Supervisor Brandon Talsma asked if the county would be responsible for overlaying the ramps, which are also in bad shape.

“I’m assuming at this point, I’m figuring it’s going to be edge of shoulder to edge of shoulder. However we define that and we go across. I already told the DOT it’s going to look real ugly,” Frietsch said. “I already suggested the DOT go down into the radius return points on the ramps or even further down to make it better.”

The resurfacing of F-48 West covers about six miles of road from the interchanges of Interstate 80 to the eastern edge of Lambs Grove. In July, it was estimated the project will cost $4.5 million. The county highway shares state ownership and is often referred as “Old Highway 6″ or “Old 6″ by locals.