Street maintenance — coming to a neighborhood near you.
Maybe not immediately, but as part of the city’s goal of repaving four to five miles of roadway every year, the Sedona City Council approved a contract for the current fiscal year. During the Tuesday, Oct. 8, meeting, a contract extension not to exceed $1 million was awarded to Cactus Asphalt, Inc.
These projects will include annually programmed pavement preservation and road rehabilitation, which were approved in the Fiscal Year 2019-20 budget.
Fractured Aggregate Surface Treatment is being used on lower-volume residential streets to maximize the number of miles that the city can successfully maintain each year, a city report states. By using FAST in conjunction with mill and overlay on higher volume collector roads, the city was able to resurface approximately 6.9 miles in Fiscal Year 2017, 4.8 miles in Fiscal Year 2018, and 4.2 miles this past fiscal year.
“In FY 17 we focused all of our budget on resurfacing streets with the inception of FAST,” Engineering Supervisor Stephen Craver said the day after the council meeting. “In FY 18 and FY 19, we utilized some budget to do more asset preservation. We placed a liquid road seal coat in the Chapel subdivision in FY 18 and the Harmony/Andante area in FY 19. The idea with this strategy is to keep good pavement in good condition, and reduce more costly maintenance in the future.”
FAST is approximately half the cost of a traditional mill and overlay and will extend the life of a roadway by 12 to 15 years, the report states. The process for FAST includes application of hot rubberized binder and hot pre-coated aggregate, followed immediately by rolling/sweeping and a final seal coat layer.
“We have found it to be very beneficial,” Craver said of FAST. “The application does have a noticeably rougher surface than an overlay, but on recent applications, a thicker seal coat has been used as the final layer to alleviate the roughness.”
Some benefits of FAST:
-High adhesion rate of aggregate, providing a more durable and aesthetically pleasing product versus traditional chip seal.
-Fast curing time and reduced construction disruption.
-Help preventing recurring cracks and potholes in asphalt by creating a flexible barrier/seal over the asphalt road.
-Environmentally friendly — approximately 500 old tires used on each lane mile.
-Saves tax dollars.
Proposed resurfacing for this fiscal year includes Little Scout Road, Posse Ground Road, Carruth Drive and FAST in the Northview, Inspirational View and Oak Creek Development subdivisions.
