Residents still waiting for county to finish Orange Road

ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind. - A St. Joseph County road still in shambles and residents don’t know when it will get better.

Orange Road in St. Joseph County was repaved earlier this summer. A type of asphalt used to re-pave the road wasn’t drying and drivers say their cars were leaving big ruts in the pavement.

Turns out the road is still wet and those who use it often say enough is enough.

Folks here are confused. One day paving crews are putting berm, which is the siding, and the next day they are gone leaving the other side of the road unfinished.

“They were going to do the berms, Reith Rile started the berms and then abruptly quit,” Dave Szymczak, one neighbor, said.

Many residents who live on Orange Road have been waiting years to see the road re-paved.

“They said they were going to grind up the road and use that as the base and then they’re going to pave over it,” Szymczak said. “Everybody from New to Roosevelt and the subdivision were all excited about that.”

Now it’s a headache.

“The road has got a lot of loose rock that when you drive down the road it hits underneath your car,” Laury Rubin, another neighbor said.” Along the sides of the road, there is so much loose rock, so much so that over here I can’t even run my lawnmower.”

Some areas on the road you see piles of rocks. Other parts of the road can still be pushed down. But folks say everything was going great until the pavement process.

“They were doing a great job. They came through marking trees. They spent a lot of time marking trees, taking trees out. They spent a lot of time on irrigation,” John Cook, one neighbor said.

Now, residents are waiting for something to be done about it.

“Originally we were told it would be a week to cure and now it’s two months and Reith Riley said maybe a year,” Cook said.

“I don’t know when it’s going to be cured or be drivable where it’s going to be a good condition for all traffic that goes down this road,” Szymczak said.

Rubin said she just wants it to look like the newly-paved roads just down the street.

“It looks very nice and there’s a line going down the road and the road looks very smooth. I don’t see any of this kind of process on the road,” Rubin said.

County officials told ABC57 they are not finished with Orange Road. We’ve contacted the county engineer for more information on when it will be done, and are waiting on a call back.