Bystol highlights busy year for highway department

The year 2022 was a busy one for the Shawano County Highway Department.

Highway Commissioner Grant Bystol appeared at the Dec. 21 Shawano County Board meeting to highlight some of the projects that were completed over the year, including replacing the bridge on County Road HHH in Shawano, improving Shawano County Park and a repaving project on County Road MMM in Shawano.

“We maintain 515 lane miles of state roadway in Shawano County,” said Bystol. “294 miles of county roadway, as well as, many townships that we do work for.”

Taking about the work that the highway department did on County Road MMM, Bystol explained that it was an asphalt paving project to replace the existing road.

“That would be from the railroad tracks to the Wolf River,” said Bystol. “If you ask why we didn’t go all the way to 29 — well, there is a project in the works from the railroad to 29. There is going to be some intersection improvements — maybe realigning that might take it all the way to the railroad tracks on the other side.”

Bystol dove into the improvements that the highway department assisted with at Shawano County Park as well, saying that this was a project that was wanted for a while.

“It has been 10-11 years since we did this, but at the county park, we had a beach sand addition and we did beach trail repaving project,” said Bystol. “We re-established 40-50 feet of the beach that had washed away over the last 11 years.”

Speaking on the County Road HHH bridge project, Bystol said that replacing and improving the bridge was another project that the highway department wanted to get done for a long time. The bridge was replaced, because it had met its life expectancy. The new bridge, which was completed in November, will also allow for more foot and boating traffic.

“It will be a nice addition to the community, as well as the boaters that use it in the summer,” said Bystol.

lreimer@newmedia-wi.com