Paving is an essential part of the City’s scheduled annual maintenance work for its roads and streets. Paving projects generally involve phases of work where traffic may be impacted for shorter durations, but roads remain open.
Repaving a road involves many steps and most times, the first step the public may notice is the milling process. Milling is done by a large machine that grinds the top surface off the old asphalt. This ensures that when new asphalt is added, the road maintains the same height and matches adjacent curbs, driveways and intersections. After milling, crews must repair and adjust manhole covers. This is a crucial step done by hand to protect the integrity of the finished project.
Then finally, it’s paving day. On paving day, a truck will first spray “tack” as a type of treatment that helps new pavement bond to the existing pavement. Next, an asphalt spreader places the asphalt in a consistent thickness and width and compacts the asphalt. Rollers then travel behind the paver to seal the surface.
The final step is painting lines and, in some cases, adding crushed rock on the shoulders; the icing on the cake. These steps all must follow in a specific sequence at just the right time to give a durable and smooth finished product.
While we do this important work, we encourage drivers to have patience, pay attention to signs and always obey the directions of traffic control persons. Please slow down and be attentive when driving though construction zones, it might save someone’s life.