The Bend City Council has authorized about $7.04 million for street preservation work in Bend this summer to improve 125 of lane miles of Bend’s roads.
This included a $5.3 million agreement with Granite Construction that will improve 50 lane miles with grind-and-inlay and overlay treatments. This will include work on some high-use streets including Skyliner Road, Century Drive, Colorado Avenue and Olney/Penn/Neff. Some of this work will occur at night to minimize disruptions to the public.
The Council has also approved a $710,709 contract with Intermountain Slurry Seal for slurry seal treatments on about 60 lane miles around the City, and an $824,073 contract with Alex Hodge Construction for Shevlin Park Road and Mount Washington roundabout reconstruction. In a joint venture with Deschutes County, the City will chip-seal approximately 15 lane miles around the City, too.
“We’re shifting our emphasis slightly more toward our residential roads, as most of our main streets are in better shape,” said Bend Streets and Operations Director David Abbas.
The attached map shows a variety of types of treatments that will occur on Bend roads. The City’s “Keep Good Roads Good” philosophy means we maintain and preserve streets with the most cost-effective treatment for the road condition — the right treatment at the right time. Treatments include:
- Inlays and Overlays – Old asphalt is ground out and replaced or a new layer of asphalt is paved on top of existing roadway. The process can take a couple of days.
- Slurry – A treatment for low-volume residential streets. One-day closures typically expected.
- Chipseals – Hot oil and rock are applied to the road. Rolling, short term closures expected.
A road’s conditions help the City determine maintenance plans. Street preservation treatments can include chip seal, slurry seal, grind-and-inlay or overlay treatments, depending on the severity of the road degradation. The worst roads need full reconstruction. Reconstruction is exponentially more expensive than maintenance, not an efficient use of maintenance funds and more likely to be paid for as part of a larger Capital Improvement Program.
To learn more about Bend’s street preservation practices, www.bendoregon.gov/streetpreservation, which includes a new interactive map about this summer’s plans.
By: The City of Bend on April 3, 2019