Township Road Commissioner Explains Decision to Shut Down Part of Farnsworth

John Shoemaker remembers exactly when he made the call.

He was driving on South Farnsworth Avenue, trying to avoid as many potholes as he could, when another driver passed him at 45 mph, he said.

That driver then nearly ran off the road to keep from trundling into one of those potholes, and by the time he’d righted himself, he nearly collided head-on with another car coming the other direction.

“I just said, it’s not worth it. I have to close the road,” Shoemaker said.

And so he did. In what Shoemaker believes may be a first, he used his authority as Aurora Township highway commissionerto shut down about a half-mile of South Farnsworth, from Montgomery Road to Sedona Road. He said it could be at least two months before the road can be driven again.

All traffic will be rerouted to Hill Avenue until the road is reopened.

Looking at the closed portion of South Farnsworth, it’s easy to see why Shoemaker took the steps he did. Every few feet there are sizable holes in the asphalt, crevices and craters that make driving hazardous.

These eruptions were caused partially by the wild swings in temperature over the past few weeks, Shoemaker said, but also can be traced to the history of the road itself.

South Farnsworth, Shoemaker said, was never properly shored up when it was last paved and it contains no stone base under the asphalt. The road was last resurfaced eight years ago, and there is nothing, he said, binding the new surface to the old road.

“There are some points where you can take off chunks of road the size of a baseball mitt, and you can see the old painted lines [on the original road] underneath,” he said.

Shoemaker’s department did try to patch up the road this month, but eventually gave up. The fix, he said, will be to chip off the second layer of asphalt and “put a real, genuine base in there.”

Even without adding the stone base, just making the road drivable again could cost upward of $150,000, he said. Shoemaker spent $340,000 over the last year on road resurfacing, and with this portion of Farnsworth included, he said he plans to spend more than double that in the coming year.

“There are roads I did this year that were done for the first and last time in 1958,” he said.

While Aurora Township owns the majority of the closed portion of the road, the city of Aurorais responsible for “a couple hundred feet” of it, according to Public Works Director Ken Schroth. He said the city will assess its portion and determine what repairs are needed.

No city of Aurora residents live along that road, according to spokesman Dan Ferrelli.

Shoemaker said his crews will begin working on the road Thursday morning.

“We may have to get out there, roll up our sleeves and do work we’re not used to,” he said.