AS TEMPERATURES DROP and you grab your winter jacket, some Contra Costa County roads also recently got a new coat.
For the past few months, large construction trucks moved through the area repairing roads in some of the unincorporated county towns, such as Kensington and East Richmond Heights.
The slurry seal project, which included covering roads with a hot asphalt mix, was done by Contra Costa County Public Works Department as part of its commitment to fix roads in unincorporated towns every five to seven years, or whenever needed.
Contra Costa Public Works staff regularly inspects and assesses roads throughout the county. Based on that, they create a maintenance schedule for different towns. This year, the maintenance work focused on Kensington, East Richmond Heights, and unincorporated parts of Walnut Creek, such as San Miguel.
According to Randolf Sanders, senior civil engineer with the Contra Costa County Public Works Department, “There are multiple steps depending on the surface treatment chosen. For the fiberized slurry, you must start with surface preparation prior to placing the surface treatment. This involves infield markups from resident engineers and contractors to identify work that needs crack seal versus base failure repairs.”
When workers from the department notice cracks beneath the roadway, they add a fiberized slurry seal, which is an asphalt mixed layer on top to fill in cracks and potholes.
The project is generally done between June and October, or months with a higher temperature — the roads set best in dry, high temperatures. According to Sanders, the $12 million funding for this road maintenance project came from gas tax funds, which is a small tax included with the purchase of gasoline, and was split between the project areas based on size. No project funding came from property taxes.
Spreading the word
Sanders emphasized the challenge in notifying residents about the project. A few weeks before the project started, Kensington residents received a letter in the mail letting them know the project was going to happen, and that it could cause disruption. Residents also received a note by their front door the day before their street got redone, telling them not to park on the street the next day.
But not everybody got the message. Sanders described how it is difficult to get the information about schedules and road closures to residents, especially since some people get their news online, while others might read a physical newspaper.
Sanders, who manages many of these projects yearly, said, “The other thing is people have, you probably know, people have a certain expectation for what their wants and desires are. Unfortunately, we all know the world doesn’t really work that way. So (people need to have) patience, and that’s the biggest (thing), patience. … It’s a nuisance, but it’s a necessary evil.”
Some people were annoyed by the issues in scheduling and communication. Others said road closures during the project created challenges for local services.
“… There were lots of customers who didn’t have the parking so they went to a different store. … For the last two weeks it was very slow.” Abhi Khurma, manager at Young’s Market in Kensington
“One time we got trapped, you know, like in one area where we couldn’t cross (Arlington Avenue) for a while,” according to Greg and Kim Christie, office staff of Bay View Refuse, the company that manages trash collection for Kensington.
Other local businesses also reported some issues.
Abhi Khurma, a manager at Young’s Market, one of the only grocery stores in Kensington, mentioned that the lack of parking created a very slow few weeks at the end of September. Since the road was getting resurfaced, the parking outside of Young’s was inaccessible.
“It was really slow, there were lots of customers who didn’t have the parking so they went to a different store. … For the last two weeks it was very slow,” he explained while standing in the grocery store aisle. Khurma said he hoped that the customers would come back now that the project had been completed and the parking was open.
Not too cool for school
Residents who needed to take their children to school described realizing they might not have a path to commute to school.
“Right before school started, I started looking at what the road closures were going to look like to see if it was going to affect our commute. … I was looking at the map, and I was like, ‘oh my gosh, this is crazy.’ Crazy. Like there’s no, there’s just no way to do that,” explained Katie Brohawn, mother of three children, one who attends the local middle school in a carpool.
Brohawn described how, after figuring out the challenges, she reached out to Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia in mid-August about starting after the commute for the first week of school. Gioia contacted the Public Works Department, which had some flexibility about the start time, and was able to move the start of the repaving work 30 minutes later than planned for the first week of school. This allowed families to drop off kids with normal traffic, rather than the increased traffic that came with the roadwork. Browhan said she felt appreciative that Gioia was able to make that change.
Next year, the road project will focus on Rodeo, Crockett, and a portion of Diablo.
Rachel Ross is an 11th grader at El Cerrito High School in El Cerrito and a Contra Costa Youth Journalism reporter. This story originally appeared in CCSpin.