HIGHWAY DIVISION

Glenn Lampark, Director of Public Works
Dennis Orlando Superintendent of Highway and Parks

OPERATING AUTHORITY AND PURPOSE

The goal of the Highway division is to maintain, plan and construct County Trunk highways and to maintain State Trunk highways and freeways so as to provide citizens of the County with a safe, usable roadway system at a level of service acceptable to a majority of its citizens and at the lowest possible cost. It is also our objective to provide support and assistance, both physical and technical, to preserve, protect and improve Racine County's infrastructure.

Working out of facilities at Ives Grove and Rochester, the division provides all the maintenance services required for the proper upkeep of the roads it is responsible for, including the specialized services required each winter.

The division currently maintains over 330 lane miles of County Trunk highways, 16 County bridges and numerous smaller drainage structures, and operates and maintains six County owned dams, County-owned gravel pits, and the County's fuel management system. It also has primary charge of the County's Underground Storage Tank Management System. Under the general direction of the State Department of Transportation, this division provides general and winter maintenance on over 550 lane miles of freeway and State Trunk Highways within Racine County. In order to perform this work, the division controls, supervises and maintains approximately 700 vehicles and pieces of equipment used in highway and park maintenance and operations.

The Public Works department operates and maintains the Racine County motor pool, providing vehicles to county departments on a cost-per-mile basis.

The Highway division's planning and engineering staff which, includes the County surveyor, plans, designs, competitively bids, constructs and inspects highway, bridge, park and other major County projects. The division's operations staff provides accounting and administrative functions for the highway and park funds.
 

ACHIEVEMENT OF PERFORMANCE GOALS

Our goals for 2001 included a number of road construction projects. All were completed. They include:

•  The resurfacing and rehabilitation of portions of County Trunk Highway A and FF.
   
•  The reconstruction of County Trunk Hwy H from State Trunk Highway 38 to County Trunk Highway K
   
•  Concrete joint repair project on County Trunk Highway C

2002 GOALS AND BUDGET STRATEGIES

•  Perform reconstruction and rehabilitation of County Trunk Highway K from Central Pacific Rail Road to Union Pacific Rail Road with the signalization of the intersection of County Trunk Highway K and H
   
•  Reconstruct County Trunk Highway Y from County Trunk Highway KR to County Trunk Highway X
   
•  Perform geometric improvements and signalize the intersection of County Trunk Highway C and County Trunk Highway H

COUNTY BOARD DIRECTIVE

The County Staff should study savings that could be generated by alternative uses for the County Schools building and report back to the County Handicapped School Board and Finance Committee by June 30, 2002. Until this report is presented to the committees, any capital expenditure in the 2002 budget would require prior approval of the County handicapped School Board and Finance Committee.