“Really, the story of the summer is the resurfacing,” said Allen Messer, Hamilton Director of Engineering. “We’ve had a number of resurfacing projects both with the contract work and the public works.”
Dozens of the project included repaving roads either with a contractor or in-house as the city’s Public Works Department is dispatching the miller and paver machines it purchased to do more in-house work.
“I know there was a lot of frustration this summer with the number of streets we were working on,” said City Manager Craig Bucheit. “It was an inconvenience, and we tried to monitor that the best we can, but we had a deadline here. We really wanted to get these streets open for school, and the credit to our team for delivering on that.”
Road work, whether it was paving projects or reconstruction, was done both externally through contractors and internally with the city’s Public Works Department. Messer said there was a lot of work done around the city.
“From Tylersville all the way over to New London, we were literally doing paving, major corridors, throughout the city from the west end to the east end,” he said.
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
Just like the breadth of projects reached to many corners of the city, funding these projects was also expansive. Sources of funding included levy dollars from the 2020 Streets Levy fund, grants, outside partners and city coffers.
A significant amount was from grant funds, said Messer. This year, Hamilton spent around $13 million in transportation improvements funds and about $8 million was through grant funding, he said.
Smaller neighborhood streets saw an increase in projects as the city acquired this year a milling machine and paving machine which allows city crews to address pothole-riddled streets and failing asphalt.
Public Works Director Dan Arthur said it won’t be until later this fall when the true savings can be calculated, since there are more paving projects to be completed, but the return on the $565,000 investment for the city will pay high dividends. He estimates contracting this work out would have cost two or three times more than this in-house option. Arthur said crews started out taking care of portions of nine roads, hitting streets block by block. Now, the equipment will be sent out more frequently.
Streets benefiting from these pieces of equipment, which mill a couple of inches of pavement and replace it with fresh asphalt in two passes instead of three or four, have been identified through 311 reports, Plan Hamilton, streets levy survey, social media and members of City Council.
Roads weren’t the only thing either being paved or constructed this summer.
The Hamilton Beltline Recreational Trail is designed to transform the abandoned rail line used by the former Champion Mill paper plant into a 3-mile recreational trail loop navigating the city’s neighborhoods. The city just finished Phase 3 this summer, several weeks ahead of schedule.
Phase 3 runs from North B Street along the top of the Great Miami River levee and next to Spooky Nook Champion Mill convention center and hotel leading to the High-Main Bridge.
“If you haven’t been out there, it looks really nice,” said Messer. The bike and walking path is lined with aluminum railings along the Black Street end of the project and wood railings close to the High-Main bridge end. The project was expected to be completed in November, but was done several weeks early.
Phase 4 is planned to go from Eaton Avenue to Main Street.
Hamilton is also four-for-four in securing Safe Routes to School grants from the state. In 2024, the city applied a nearly $390,000 grant it previously received to the sidewalk improvements on Van Hook Avenue, from Hayes to Fairview avenues that supports Linden Elementary. The city also secured this year a Safe Routes grant to improve the sidewalk along Wasserman Road from Imperial Drive to Victor Court, which supports Ridgeway Elementary.
Bucheit said the infrastructure improvements around Hamilton would not be possible “without the Street Levy fund, and the ingenuity and creativity of our team.”
“The fact is, these small streets in our neighborhoods wouldn’t get the kind of attention that our public works folks are able to give and get into these small streets to make really huge improvements,” he said. “Mobilizing an entire capital project would just not be possible.”
While Hamilton had a productive year, Bucheit said a lot more work needs to be done. The Streets Levy fund is wrapping up year-four of a 10-year process, and millions of dollars of grants have already been secured for 2025 projects and beyond.
“We’ll be back with a plan later this year,” Bucheit said.
MAJOR INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS IN 2024
These are the major infrastructure projects in Hamilton this year. Some have been completed and some are in progress.
Completed
• Eaton Avenue resurfacing
• New London Road intersection improvement and resurfacing •
NW Washington Boulevard water main and resurfacing
• Phase 3 Hamilton Beltline Recreational Trail (Black Street to High-Main bridge)
In Progress
• Millville Avenue water main and resurfacing
• Tylersville Road reconstruction, from Hamilton Enterprise Park to Gateway Avenue (will be paved this year)
• Millikin and D streets intersection improvements
• Bilstein Bridge
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