Lyon County commissioners are stepping up efforts to make sure county roads are actually roads.
If that sounds like a waste of time, it’s not. County Commissioner Dan Slater says there are hundreds of roads or road segments that could be reviewed for potential closure at some point, largely because of the county’s active river network.
During KVOE’s Friday Newsmaker segment, Slater said the county’s road network was originally mapped out in the 1850s and 1860s, and up until the 1960s townships, not the county, were responsible for road maintenance. Also, ag properties have consolidated and expanded over time. Instead of 40-acre or 80-acre farms, many properties are now hundreds or thousands of acres. This has led to the informal abandonment of small county roads, even though they remain on the books and thus need county maintenance.
One road vacation case that saw a lot of headlines earlier this year was Road A in northwest Lyon County is supposed to straddle the Morris County line, but because of terrain issues it was actually built into Lyon County.
More recently, commissioners closed parts of Road F between Roads 160 and 170 because that part of the road was actually in the middle of a river.
Slater says it’s time-consuming to research a road for possible closure. Residents have to file a petition to close a road. Commissioners then have to have a road viewing and later have a public hearing before a decision is made. He says this may be a perpetual process now for commissioners.
If you have a question about whether a road segment needs to be closed or actually should remain open, call the Lyon County Highway Department at 340-8220.
