Hamlet’s Railroad Street project is proving to be a bit more of a challenge than originally hoped. Engineer Lee Nagai gave an update during Wednesday’s town council meeting.
“There isn’t much in the way of a road section there,” he explained. “There’s a varying amount of asphalt, and there is no base under it, so I think that kind of explains why it’s broken up the way it is. And obviously, we didn’t have in the project to go through and mill up and then dig up and put base and all that back. That’s really expensive.” He said the plan now is to leave as much of the existing material in place as possible, in order to install the new material.
The project involves resurfacing Railroad Street from Jefferson to Starke streets. Nagai once again warned council members that this project won’t solve all of the street’s drainage issues. “We’re still going to have puddles in the same places, and that pavement just is not going to have the same performance,” he said. “But we’re doing the best we can with the dollars that we have available.”
Hamlet received a Community Crossings grant from the state to cover 75 percent of the cost.
