Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - On Friday’s KGVO City Talk Program, Brian Hensel, Missoula Public Works Director for Streets explained the many projects planned for the summer season.

Hensel first singled out the paving project under the Orange Street underpass.

Friday's City Talk Program Focused on Street Repairs and Potholes

“Starting June 6 through June 7, we are going to start a milling and paving project at the Orange Street underpass on the approaches where they come down to underneath the tunnel,” began Hensel. “They're pretty beat up with potholes. We're working with MDT (Montana Department of Transportation) through our maintenance agreement. I'm hoping that we can just do a half day on Tuesday, June 6, where we can mill out the bad asphalt and we will keep southbound traffic open. And then the next day on Wednesday, we'll come back and pave it. It should be fairly quick and be fairly easy. We're also going to wait till after 9:00 a.m. and hopefully, most of that morning commute will be done right.”

Hensel said he was proud of a job that was recently completed on Brooks as it ran into Higgins Avenue.

“We just finished a big job on Brooks, which is from Mount to Higgins,” he said. “Basically, that actually went real smoothly. We kept southbound traffic going on that one also, and I did not get one complaint on that job, Peter. I'm also going to hopefully get on to England between Reserve and Tina. Then we’ll get back to going on between Brooks and Walnut. That one's going fairly good so far weather permitting. We'll be looking also maybe doing some work on McDonald Street coming up.”

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Hensel said the street Next to WINCO had 'Reverted to a Wagon Trail'.

Hensel said he had been waiting patiently to totally resurface one street adjacent to the new WINCO supermarket on Reserve Street.

“We finished Dearborn over by WINCO,” he said. “That one came out nice. That street was in such bad shape that it reverted back to a wagon trail there for a while. The asphalt there was old. It was only about an inch and a half thick. And then when WINCO opened up, that traffic greatly increased, and it just beat it down to the dirt. That was one of the first projects we did. I was happy to get that done.”

One caller asked how Hensel and other road maintenance agencies coordinate their jobs. Hensel said there’s a lot of planning over the winter before the spring street repairs begin.

Hensel Plans with MDOT and Other Agencies Where to Best put their Resources

“We all sit down with water wastewater, our transportation group, and we try to go through which projects we're all planning for the upcoming summer,” he said. “We do that so we can pool resources where we can. I can say ‘our transportation folks want to add a new Greenway or add some new bike lanes’. Then we can coordinate. Well, where they want to put it, the asphalt is in bad condition. I can schedule it for overlays, or a chip seal, and then we can restripe it for a greenway or additional bike lanes to improve our multimodal routes.”

Hensel also oversees the winter snow plowing, sanding, and deicing programs as the seasons change.

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