If the roads were bad enough near your home would you fork out some cash to fix it yourself? Well that's exactly what a group of neighbors in Cedar Falls did.

The Courier reports that "Randy Wheeler and other residents along Big Woods Road and Mount Vernon Road put together $65,000 to have their roads paved."

Apparently, there was a three-quarter of a mile section of Big Woods Road and a mile of Mount Vernon Road that was causing a lot of dust. It was so bad that it covered vehicles and sometimes the inside of homes if residents left their windows open. Not only was the dust bad, but Wheeler told The Courier that it got worse when the Department of Transportation shut off access to Highway 218 from Mount Vernon Road a couple of years back which caused more traffic and angered residents. Not only was there more dust, but there was more travel time since people had to use Mount Vernon and Big Woods Road to get to the highway.

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Wheeler went door-to-door asking neighbors to chip in to get the road fixed. And while some neighbors believed the county should pay since they cut off the access, others were tired of waiting for something that was most likely not going to happen and took charge. Out of the 35 property owners in the area, 24 of them wound up contributing about $2,500 per household to the project.

Now the roads are paved and frustrations have dwindled. Wheeler is not only thankful that he doesn't have to eat dust anymore, but he told The Courier that the project has been a “good old-fashioned community experience.”

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