Vancouver summer road work under way

After taking a look at its stock of about 580 miles of paved city streets, Vancouver’s Pavement Management Program staff has picked the major arteries and neighborhood byways that are due for a face-lift.

Contractors will spend the rest of the summer and about $4.5 million making them better.

Vancouver’s 2010 pavement management program has begun. Numerous arterials are set for repaving; other streets in east Vancouver will get slurry seal or microsurfacing work. Drivers should plan to avoid the routes when possible; 10- to 20-minute waits are possible, particularly during paving.

For a map and complete list of streets scheduled for slurry and microsurfacing visit http://www.cityofvancouver.us/slurryseal. Here are the major routes set for overlay:

o Columbia Way, from Columbia Shores Boulevard to Kaiser Avenue.

? Mill Plain Boulevard, from Fort Vancouver Way to Grand Boulevard.

? Grand Boulevard, from Columbia House Boulevard to Mill Plain Boulevard.

? Stapleton Road, from East 18th Street to Fourth Plain Boulevard.

? Andresen Road, from Mill Plain Boulevard to Northeast 18th Street.

? Andresen Road, from state Highway 500 to 700 feet south.

? Northeast 112th Avenue, from Northeast 28th Street/Burton Road to Northeast 34th Circle.

? Northeast 112th Avenue, from Northeast 49th Street to state Highway 500.

? Hearthwood Boulevard, from Mill Plain Boulevard to Southeast First Street.

? Southeast 34th Street, from Southeast 176th Avenue to Southeast 192nd Avenue.

Vancouver evaluates the roads and picks which areas where resurfacing could best extend the life of the street, said Bill Whitcomb, pavement program manager in the Public Works Department.

“If you have very little money, what you do is you try to use the money in the best way possible,” he said. “That way you make sure in the future you don’t have to spend more money.”

About $2.5 million of this year’s construction funding comes from stimulus funds; the rest is paid through the general fund and already collected gas and real estate excise taxes.

The city will be doing three kinds of work: overlay, slurry seal and microsurfacing. Overlay is done in areas where heavy vehicles have compromised the structure of the road, while slurry seal and microsurfacing take care of more minor cracking that’s due to age, Whitcomb said.

The work is far less expensive than having to rebuild road, and saves money in the long run, he said. It’s also different from the street maintenance program, which is charged with filling potholes and other day-to-day work.

“So far, there seems to be support for the program, even in these difficult budget times,” Whitcomb said.

He said that residents often think that a road that’s being resurfaced is still in good shape. But by the time a road is visibly bad, it’s usually too far gone to be resurfaced and has to be rebuilt, he said.

A few streets do need to be rebuilt, such as Columbia Street from West 15th to West 45th streets and 18th Street from Grand Boulevard to Stapleton Road.

But because it costs so much more to tear out a road and put a new one in, it would blow the road program’s budget while allowing the other borderline streets to get worse, Whitcomb explained.

“If we put all our resources into one or two roads to reconstruct, we’ll fall behind,” he said. “Instead, we hold (the worst roads) together and keep them in a tolerable condition until we can get the resources to reconstruct.”

The resurfacing work will go on through August, but the schedule is dependent on sunny weather. The city has contracted with Granite Northwest of Vancouver to do the work.

Slurry seal and microsurfacing projects alternate each year between the east and west sides of Vancouver. This summer, the focus will be on the city’s eastern half.

Residences and businesses along impacted streets receive door hanger notices in advance of the work. The city says drivers could expect delays of 10 to 20 minutes.