The City’s two major road construction projects this summer are the 2013 Arterial and Residential Street Asphalt Overlays and the 2013 Arterial and Residential Chip Seal. Here is their current status:
‘Chip Seal’ work
This work will occur on Mercerwood Drive from Gallagher Hill all the way down to East Mercer Way.
The city is also “chip sealing” S.E. 40th Street from 96th Ave S.E. to the 9700 block (this is the residential piece of 40th), and 81st, 82nd, and 83rd Avenues near Homestead Field.
Construction work on this project began a couple of weeks ago with some storm drainage repairs and street patching, which have wrapped up. Last Friday, the City’s contractor, Doolittle Construction “pre-sealed” the new patched areas and conducted other preparatory work. The chip seal was to be placed on the on these roadways on Monday and Tuesday, July 29 and 30.
Most of these roads will receive a double chip seal—one each day. There will be flaggers out to direct traffic. Contractors will also be sweeping all the roads each day which may generate some noise and dust. By today, all the chips should be down and the roads will look like they are gravel.
The contractor will then return the week of Aug. 5 to fog seal all of the chip areas. This fog sealing applies a top coating of asphalt to the chip seal to help with chip adhesion and also will give the road an even black color. This process will require closing one side of the roads to traffic to allow the fog seal to dry. Again, driving delays will result, some driving around the block, and lots of flaggers and cones to keep cars off the wet oil. A couple of weeks after the fog sealing we will install the permanent striping.
The city mailed flyers about the projects to all homes in the vicinity of the chip sealing work.
Pavement overlays
This project involves “hot mix” overlays of several areas of the Island: West Mercer Way from SE 24th to SE 28th streets; and 80th Ave from S.E. 27th to S.E, 28th Streets in the Town Center; the Parkwood neighborhood (east of Island Crest Way across from Island Park Elementary), and two other small residential streets.
Work on this road contract is beginning with the Parkwood neighborhood.
The city is also repairing curbs and storm drain pipe repairs. The City’s contractor, Lakeside Industries, has scheduled repaving work for the week of Aug. 5. This work will include mass removal of the existing pavement down to base rock, and repaving with hot mix asphalt. Most of those areas will get two paving courses. Lakeside hopes to get most if not all of the paving done the second week of August.
Again, there will be flaggers, equipment, and lots of dump trucks in the area.
