By

Fred Swift

Hamilton County Reporter

(NOTE: This is a commentary written by Fred Swift of the Hamilton County Reporter. The views expressed are those of Fred Swift and do not necessarily reflect the views of LarryInFishers.com.  This opinion piece is posted here as part of a partnership between the Reporter and LarryInFishers.com) 

Congratulations are in order for our local street and road departments. This winter has been hard on roads, but Hamilton County streets and roads are in good shape compared to neighboring Marion County.

Chuckholes (or potholes if you prefer) have made a shambles of many streets in Indianapolis. We have some broken pavement, no doubt about it, but nothing like our neighbors where a near state of emergency exists. Damage to a car is a distinct possibility when driving south of 96th Street.

What has made the difference? It could be that a better job of rebuilding and resurfacing was done in this county, or it could be that more heavy trucks in Marion County have ruined the roads, or it could be that our better maintenance and quicker repairs have kept ahead of widespread problems.

We could still have a lot of extreme winter weather in the next several weeks, and anything could happen, but so far it looks like our streets are holding up well and street crews are on top of the situation.

But, probably the most important thing about all this is the fact that areas like Indianapolis with big road problems will be spending much of their time and money this year simply filling chuckholes to get by for another year.

Whereas, in Hamilton County our street and highway departments can put their efforts into actual resurfacing and building new roads after repairing the relatively small amount of damage done by winter weather.

Good management and effective work crews have helped bring about this situation. That’s why we say congratulations and thank goodness we are not in the situation that some neighboring areas find themselves.