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This yet to be named road extending north of First Street and east of Luther Road is part of the new SunRidge Place residential development. Like many other in-progress or planned residential developments in Fremont, SunRidge Place is an example of new roads and streets being constructed in the city as development grows into formerly vacant land.
This yet to be named road extending north of First Street and east of Luther Road is part of the new SunRidge Place residential development. Like many other in-progress or planned residential developments in Fremont, SunRidge Place is an example of new roads and streets being constructed in the city as development grows into formerly vacant land.
This is the current end point of Luther Road in southeast Fremont, a dead end street that officials are planning to extend further south in the coming years as new residential development is built south of Morningside Road.
This new street near the intersection of 19th Street and Luther Road, just south of 23rd Street in Fremont, is part of a planned new residential development to the east toward U.S. Highway 275. The work is in the early stages, and land clearing has been ongoing for several months.
This is the current end point of Luther Road in southeast Fremont, a dead end street that officials are planning to extend further south in the coming years as new residential development is built south of Morningside Road.
This yet to be named road extending north of First Street and east of Luther Road is part of the new SunRidge Place residential development. Like many other in-progress or planned residential developments in Fremont, SunRidge Place is an example of new roads and streets being constructed in the city as development grows into formerly vacant land.
This yet to be named road extending north of First Street and east of Luther Road is part of the new SunRidge Place residential development. Like many other in-progress or planned residential developments in Fremont, SunRidge Place is an example of new roads and streets being constructed in the city as development grows into formerly vacant land.
This yet to be named road extending north of First Street and east of Luther Road is part of the new SunRidge Place residential development. Like many other in-progress or planned residential developments in Fremont, SunRidge Place is an example of new roads and streets being constructed in the city as development grows into formerly vacant land.
This is the current end point of Luther Road in southeast Fremont, a dead end street that officials are planning to extend further south in the coming years as new residential development is built south of Morningside Road.
This new street near the intersection of 19th Street and Luther Road, just south of 23rd Street in Fremont, is part of a planned new residential development to the east toward U.S. Highway 275. The work is in the early stages, and land clearing has been ongoing for several months.
This is the current end point of Luther Road in southeast Fremont, a dead end street that officials are planning to extend further south in the coming years as new residential development is built south of Morningside Road.
As Fremont continues to grow its residential housing footprint, naturally there must be new roads and streets to access those developments and homes. Along with those roads are improvements to area highways and thoroughfares, creating a robust patchwork of new ways around the city.
For Fremont Mayor Joey Spellerberg, the new roads and streets – along with attention and repairs to existing infrastructure – are a large part of his vision for a new, improved Fremont and part of what he calls an ongoing “transformation” of the community.
“Roads have been a priority of mine since I was elected. We doubled the amount of our last budget going into street repairs and concrete rehabilitation. It basically doubled, going from $250,000 to $500,000. We’ve been able to replace (pavement) panels, or (fix) issues of certain streets throughout the city. We did an overlay on Clarkson Street and 16th Street this past year,” Spellerberg said. “The Southeast Beltway, as well as U.S. Highway 30, that progress that is being made is exciting. Our trails system has the Rawhide Creek trail project on the east and west part of town, it has made good progress.”
One exciting area of the roads improvements, Spellerberg noted, is Broad Street, also known as U.S. Highway 77. The City of Fremont agreed on Nov. 29, 2022, to take over jurisdictional control of the more than 3-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 77 inside city limits from the State of Nebraska as part of the ongoing Fremont Southeast Beltway Project.
The beltway project, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2022 or early 2023, will connect U.S. Highway 77 south of Fremont to U.S. Highway 275, diverting traffic around the city instead of through the middle on Broad Street.
An agreement between the City of Fremont and the State of Nebraska shifts to the city the jurisdiction of the 3.4-mile segment of U.S. Highway 77 from the intersection of the highway and Cloverly Road to the intersection of the highway with Judy Avenue and Judy Drive north of 23rd Street.
During a presentation on the issue on Nov. 29, Justin Zetterman, interim public works director for the city, explained the hand-over of control agreement to council members during the meeting, saying that the city having jurisdiction means any design changes, improvements or restrictions on traffic would now be under the authority of the city, not the state.
“Once the beltway is completed, Broad Street will not be considered a highway anymore,” Zetterman told council members. “The city would get full control of the old Highway 77.”
Spellerberg said the change in jurisdiction is a key for the city to improving the Broad Street corridor.
“One big priority for me is Broad Street. Now that the Southeast Beltway is being completed, the state agreed to relinquish Broad Street to the city so we could finally start to engineer repairs,” he explained. “I know citizens have been frustrated or concerned with that roadway. We were not able to do anything until we were able to receive (jurisdiction) of that road. So, we worked out a deal to get that done. It is a city priority to engineer that this year so work can start on it in 2024. We’ll probably have an overlay on Broad Street then.”
The 3.4-mile segment of Broad Street needs a variety of repairs, Zetterman noted in his Nov. 29 presentation, including resurfacing projects and repairs to the north viaduct over railroad tracks owned by BMSF, possible new turn lanes and traffic signals. To fund these projects, the state – he noted – will pay the city roughly $3.4 million.
Another important project – and potentially annoying one for local drivers—for 2023 is the Bell Street viaduct repair project, also known to locals as the overpass crossing the railroad tracks just north of Morningside Road.
In a December interview, Zetterman called the project, “The other big one.”
“The Bell Street viaduct (overpass), it is a rehabilitation project. The viaduct has shifted a little, it is slowly moving off its supports,” Zetterman said in December. “It is not falling down. It is a curved viaduct, and that may have caused it to starting moving a little.”
On Monday, Jan. 23, Spellerberg acknowledged in an interview about the project that the closure of the well-traveled overpass would cause nasty headaches for local commuters and semi-truck drivers in the city.
“The Bell Street viaduct is another big project this year. We are getting the engineering done on that. That will start the work on that later this year, and we’ll have to keep the public informed,” Spellerberg explained. “That will have to close … it will be closed a certain amount of time. We will be sure to the public aware of that closing.”
New housing leads
to new streetsAnother area of streets and road development for the city is the addition of new thoroughfares to meet the needs or provide access to the new housing developments in the city. This street planning also includes rehabilitation of existing roads that suffer from pothole damage, as well as traffic improvements such as the plans to study traffic lights along 23rd Street.
Jennifer Dam, the City of Fremont’s planning director, said new roads are mapped out in both the city’s comprehensive plan and the city’s long-range transportation plan.
“(Those plans) indicate where we anticipate the major roads will be in the future. For example, Luther Road will be extended to the south. There will be a need for other major roads in this section or that section to accommodate new development; that is at the very broad, high-level,” Dam explained. “Then, when a new subdivision comes in, there are requirements for new roads in the subdivision as well as connection points to the main collector and arterial road system.”
Fremont has a long list of housing projects both in the works and planned for the next few years, including the under-construction SunRidge Place on the east side of the city near the electrical generation plant as well as a proposed housing development east of Luther Road and directly south of 23rd Street behind the current Sonic restaurant.
“SunRidge Place has already been approved and platted. The developer, once a plat is approved, starts putting in infrastructure, which includes roads. There will be a number of new roads in those developments. For the SunRidge development, after a certain percentage is developed, Military Avenue will be widened to have a right turn lane going into it,” she added.
“We have a new development coming up on the city council agenda (soon), and the developer pays for off-site improvements generated by the uses in the plat, like turn lanes and road widenings. The development process is pretty complex. You have to not only consider the roads, but other infrastructure like utilities.”
One area of annoyance for drivers and city leaders is recurring potholes and cracks in concrete pavement. The repair process for both of those issues is ongoing and complex depending on what fixes are needed, said Fremont Streets Director Cari Hoffart.
“As we go through the hard freeze and increased moisture cycle, we are seeing a lot of the pothole patches that have been previously repaired come loose. We currently have crews out focusing on getting as many of these repaired each day as possible,” Hoffart said in early January. “They have been working diligently on East 23rd Street to repair those areas, and will be out again each day as weather allows moving to additional areas.”
During the winter, colder months, the city’s street crews use what is called a “cold mix” of asphalt which does not require heating up before being poured into a pothole or crack. During summer months, a “hot mix” of asphalt is utilized, which is heated on site before being molded into a pothole.
Due to complex chemical reasons, notably the lack of heat in the process, the “cold mix” asphalt is less durable, hence reducing its longevity as a repair. As water gets into the hold underneath the patch of asphalt, it can freeze causing expansion which then “pops” the asphalt patch up and back out of the pothole.
Hoffart said city leaders and planners focus on the major roads before fixing smaller, less traveled areas.
“Our main focus is to repair the main thoroughfares, then moving to repair lower traffic areas. We work with a list daily that is constantly updated to stay on top of this situation,” she added. “As far as number of potholes, that is tough to pinpoint exactly. As we go through and fix what we are aware of, new areas are being added to our list all the time. This is a seasonal process we go through each year and our crews work hard to repair these areas and keep our city roadways as safe as possible.”
Originally published on fremonttribune.com, part of the TownNews Content Exchange.
Efforts to continue to develop a future-looking mission statement for the City of Fremont continued on Saturday, Jan. 14, as members of the Fremont City Council and city staff met for an all-day workshop to hash out ideas and goals for the coming years.
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