Let the paving begin.
Humboldt City Council put the finishing touches on the 2010 paving program at their regular meeting on May 10.
The 2010 Pavement Rehabilitation program will begin in concert with the West Highway 5, Peck Road, and Hwy. 20 and 14th Ave. capital projects, reported Joe Doxey, director of planning and engineering for the city, in his report. New intersections are being built in these locations.
City crews, he noted, have already begun removing adjacent curbing and sidewalk where necessary to provide required support and drainage to the new pavement in these aeas. City Asphalt was to begin patching the concrete in these areas in early May. As well, city crews were to be out cold patching potholes, weather permitting.
Doxey had one addition to Humboldt's paving program for 2010,for which he requested council's approval.
"The Department has reveiwed the Roadway assessments and determined that 7th Ave. between Hwy. 20 and 17th St. should be the next roadway rehabilitiated under the additional 2010 budget funding," said Doxey's report. "The department takes into account the roadway's construction date, last maintenance date, condition of underlying untilites, adjacent curb condition, proximity to adjacent development and function class as a roadway in the City's traffic system," Doxey said.
The intent, clarified Mayor Malcolm Eaton, is for the city to repair as much of this corridor as possible.
They are hoping to use this street to take more traffic off of Hwy. 5, noted Coun. Leon Fleischhacker, possibly moving the stop signs that stop traffic at every block on this Ave. to face the streets instead, as per the recommendaton of the recent traffic sudy.
However, Eaton had another suggestion for roadwork. Industries in the Industrial Park had asked that the city pave Peck Road not just to the railroad tracks, as currently planned, but past the tracks to the intersection with 4th Ave.
This paving would come out of the City's budget, he added.
Doxey estimated the cost of that work at between $60,000 to $80,000, depending on how much work they would have to do to restore the road, which, he feels, still has a "pretty good" base.
Eaton also said that downtown areas - 7th and 9th St. especially - "have lots of bumps and bruises" and asked where they are on the list of paving priorities.
Doxey responded by saying that the downtown area is high on the list for utility replacement, due to the age of some of the water mains and sewer lines.
"It's pretty old stuff there," Doxey said.
That underground work has to be done before any paving is done.
The paving priority list is a rolling list, Doxey explained. It keeps getting updated as underground work is done around the city. If underground work is done on an area one year, that street moves to the paving priority list the next year.
"It's a constantly moving target," he said.
It was Doxey's suggestion that the city prioritize 7th Ave. work this year, and for the portion of Peck Road Eaton suggested get paved, apply a product that keeps roads stable and dust under control, while also retreating 4th Ave. with the same product.
The first application of this product to 4th Ave. was only a partial treatment, he explained, and is now starting to break up. A full treatment should last longer.
A motion was made to this effect, and passed by council.
