The in basket: Bob Simonoff, owner of West Shores Interiors on Chico Way writes, “In the past six weeks or so, the county is digging up asphalt on Chico Way NW and replacing it with new strips of asphalt. Today they came back and dug up portions of the road that they had filled a few weeks ago.
“I was just wondering why they are redoing some portions? And what are the costs to taxpayers, for them to re-dig and refill large portions of the street? (not to mention the disruption to our business).”
The out basket: Callene Abernathy of Kitsap County Public Works says the explanation is the same as for what also looked like duplication on Central Valley Road at just about this time last year, subject of a Road Warrior column at the time..
Here is the explanation provided by County Road Superintendent Don Schulz provided then:
““Full depth patching on this section of road was … in response to distressed areas subject to heavy truck and bus traffic.
“…The existing paved shoulders were still in very good condition, and did not need an overlay,” he said. “This allowed us to consider a partial overlay that can result in significant cost savings.
“If you do not overlay the full width of a road surface you must establish a vertical butt joint at the edge of the paving limits. The process of creating that butt joint could lead a passing motorist to conclude we were grinding out the patches we just placed.
“A butt joint is established by grinding a depth of 1½ inches at the outer edge of the travel way to level near the center line of the road. This butt joint did overlap some areas previously patched. We could have left the patches below grade in the interim period between patching and the overlay, but that would have created some safety concerns.
“Using this approach to limit the overlay to the actual travel lanes and creating a butt joint to support that resulted in saving … asphalt, reducing the overlay cost by $40,000 in material alone. The associated labor costs are also lowered by limiting the overlay to the traffic lanes.” (Don figured the savings on Chico Way to be $35,000).
“Some of the fresh patch material was removed, but considering the safety concerns a 1½-inch drop-off would cause in the interim, and the savings created by this approach, I felt the tradeoff was acceptable,” he said.
“It’s also important for readers to know that the asphalt we did remove from the patch is ground up and reused as fill material for shoulder work,” Don said.
