Gilroy
– It may take a week, a year or a decade, but eventually that
patch of discolored, bumpy road on your street will vanish. City
engineers and road inspectors say the city has a system of checks
and balances to ensure street workers leave roads in the same
condition as before they started excavatio
ns.
Gilroy – It may take a week, a year or a decade, but eventually that patch of discolored, bumpy road on your street will vanish. City engineers and road inspectors say the city has a system of checks and balances to ensure street workers leave roads in the same condition as before they started excavations. And while streets inevitably degrade over time, especially with heavy amounts of construction, officials have a program that targets roads for re-paving at least once every decade.
“The general life of asphalt concrete pavement is 20 to 25 years,” explained Mike Goodhue, the city’s senior civil engineer. “Ideally, every decade you want to do a chip seal or slurry seal and at that time do patches.”
Chip seals involve using pebbles and a petroleum-based mixture to reseal broad sections of a street; slurry seals involve mixing finer sand particles to fill in cracks. Goodhue said that ideally, the city will use both when conducting major street repairs.
In between, the city keeps a close eye on ongoing street excavation projects to ensure roads are returned to the best possible condition.
“We look at the trench wall, how they’re digging a trench, safety, traffic control,” road inspector Steve Beams said. “There are about 40 things I’m looking at. I’m not only inspector, but I’m looking out for public safety, contractor safety, the type of pipe they’re using, plans that were submitted and approved…”
Beams said street excavations most commonly involve utility work, when various groups like PG&E, Charter Cable, Verizon, or some other service provider need to repair or “tie in” services to a new development.
Utility workers recently patched up a section of road along Monterey Road, for instance, just north of Luchessa Avenue. The construction involved installing utilities for a development under way on the western side of Monterey Road, just south of the Platinum Theaters.
Although workers are gone, the work is far from over, according to Beams.
“A lot of people say “Oh this is kind of a temporary job,’ but a lot of times it is just a temporary paving to seal the trench to make it safe and driveable,” Beams said. “What they’ll do when they’re paving is do a final job at the end of the project.”
To ensure street workers meet city standards, officials require construction companies and others performing street work to put up a “performance” bond prior to issuance of an encroachment permit. Once the permit is issued, workers can excavate, although they are far from unsupervised.
Throughout the project, inspectors drop by to monitor compliance. Once the work is complete, the contractor asks the city for a “punch list” of items needed to restore the road to top condition.
“It could be anything from street light numbers on a light pole or a chip in the concrete,” said Beams, who must sign off on repairs before the contractor’s bond money. The city retains a fraction of the money during a one-year maintenance period, in case problems appear.
“A lot of people think the project’s done once they’re off of the street,” Beams said, “but we constantly keep an eye on things.”
In addition to Beams, the city has four road inspectors. To report pavement problems the city’s engineering division at 846-0450.
