Grand Junction crews out chip sealing roads | Western Colorado – The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel

The annual summer tradition of chip-sealing Grand Junction roads has begun again.

Grand Junction Public Works Director Trent Prall said city crews began chip-sealing work May 31, and will take around eight weeks to complete the maintenance. The primary locations that will be chip sealed this year are west of 25 Road and north of Interstate 70 Business within the city limits.

(Chip sealing) puts a small 3/8th inch crushed rock over a thin layer of asphalt or oil, Prall said. Then we put another layer overtop of that to form that chip seal. So that seals up our roads and tries to keep the moisture out of the roads and into the gutters and into the storm drains.

For the chip-sealing program, Prall said the department has broken up the city into 12 areas and then rotates through each area, taking on one per year. In addition to that work Prall said the city now chip seals new roads and roads that are given an overlay of new asphalt within a couple years of that work.

The standard of care now is that once you pave a street, like with an overlay or a brand new street like Seventh Street, that you come back within a couple years and you put a chip seal over top of it, Prall said. That leaves that top part of the structure pretty moist, if you will, with oil.

Chip sealing is a cost efficient way to maintain roads, Prall said. Chip-sealing costs around $1.50 per square yard, Prall said, whereas an overlay costs around $15 a square yard and reconstructing a road costs between $75 and $120 a square yard.

There are some road overlay projects in the works this summer, Prall said. Those began around the same time as chip sealing and will take between eight and 10 weeks. While city staff performs the chip sealing work, the city contracts out for road overlay work. There are no street reconstruction projects this year, Prall said.

Were trying to get it back up to a more sustainable level where our chip seals are a lot more effective in keeping our roads sealed up and not have so many streets that need a full reconstruction like Seventh Street, Prall said.

This work is part of the 2017 ballot initiative that reallocated tax money to help improve Grand Junctions roads, Prall said. In 2017 the pavement condition index was at 69 out of 100, Prall said. The goal was to improve that to 73 by 2022. After last year the index was at 71, Prall said.

Other road projects

The city will be working on two other street projects this summer, Prall said.

It is working to widen Horizon Place west of Seventh Street, including installing sidewalks to Juniper Ridge Community School. It is also planning to widen Monument Road near the Lunch Loop Trailhead.

The widening of Monument Road will allow the city to add a second left-hand turning lane into the Lunch Loop parking lot. It will also add a 12-foot wide sidewalk to the south side of the road and increase the size of the parking lot to the west. Prall said the improvements will make the lot friendlier to larger vehicles like RVs and include space for venders.

Say Trek Cycles or Specialized Cycles comes to town and they want to demo some stuff out there at the trail head, they can pull up there and take up spaces there as opposed to taking up seven or eight spaces in the regular parking lot, Prall said.

That project will begin in July and conclude around Labor Day, Prall said.

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Grand Junction crews out chip sealing roads | Western Colorado - The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel