Jackson Street work on hold until spring

The “road closed” signs may have disappeared but that doesn’t mean work is all done on Greencastle’s South Jackson Street project.

The project is done for the winter, Mayor Bill Dory told the Greencastle City Council Thursday night, and will resume in the spring once the weather gets better again.

“They’ve pretty much gone as far as they could go,” Dory told the Banner Graphic in reference to McCullough Excavating, Bainbridge, the contractor on the $750,000 project. “Most of the asphalt plants close right after Thanksgiving anyway.”

Thus construction and resurfacing work has been idle for a while now and just the other day, Dory said, “the sign company came through and took down the road closed signs.”

The South Jackson Street work commenced Sept. 25 in the area just south of the western terminus of Veterans Memorial Highway, extending south to the city limits, or the south property line of Phoenix Closures where South Jackson Street becomes Manhattan Road.

Work that has been done thus far, Mayor Dory said, has included all the drainage, along with curb and gutter installation up to the railroad right of way.

Some resurfacing work has been completed, the mayor reported, while the top coat of resurfacing work will be done in the spring “to tie in nicely” with everything else being done sometime after the weather breaks (likely March or April or even May if it’s a long winter).

Other work that has been done, Dory said, includes replacing a culvert under Jackson Street and widening the road a little to help with truck traffic turning in and out of Phoenix Closures, as well as for general safety.

“McCullough has done a nice job,” the mayor said.

He also had praise for the public in general.

“We greatly appreciate everybody’s patience in this,” Dory said before offering a new warning. “There’ll be another period of aggravation when the railroad crossing work proceeds.

“We’re trying to do the best we can,” he added, calling South Jackson “a very busy road coming into Greencastle.”

The railroad crossing has been a dangerous spot for years with Greencastle Public Works Department replacing the guardrail there several times after cars or trucks hit it because of the narrow S-curve configuration of the crossing.

“It’s a bad crossing,” Mayor Dory has noted in previous discussions, saying it was probably put in 150 years ago when the railroad first went through.

“It will still be an S-curve,” the mayor said of planned repairs. “They can’t take that out, but it will be widened.”