Paul Scott comment: Now's the time to fix the curve on Locust Road

"There was one part of Monday's public meeting about plans for Locust Road which surprised me.  Several people living along the road asked if the City of Decorah had looked into reworking the path of Locust Road, especially the big curve near the top of the hill.

The response from city officials was that such a reworking of the roadbed would be way too expensive--but no figures were disclosed in support of this statement.

It probably won't surprise you, since I'm a news reporter, but I always believe the more information you get, the better the decision you'll make.  And when it comes to the Locust Road project, there's an easy, inexpensive way to test the statement that straightening the curve on Locust Road would be "too expensive"--ask for alternate bids on this part of the road project.

In other words, contractors bidding on the project would submit a separate side bid for how much additional cost the city would have if it didn't just use the existing path of Locust Road, but had contractors remove part of a cliff in order to straighten the road.

Locust Road was built in 1947.  Now would be a good time to bring it up to 2020 standards.  If that costs $1.5 million to do, maybe we can leave it the way it is now.  If it costs $500,000, then maybe there's a discussion to be had.

But, either way, residents along Locust Road deserve to have some financial figures regarding this cost--and asking for alternate bids on this part of the project is an excellent way of getting that information."