The City of Terrace is sticking to its plan to fix up more roads than first anticipated.
“We’ve just had roads that have been so deteriorated over the years here,” said mayor Dave Pernarowski of the move to add projects this year that had at first been slated for future years. “We just need to get in and jump on it.”
The city’s draft budget contains $2.5 million for projects involving either repaving or total road reconstruction.
The largest amount, $1.1 million, will be spent on paving and pulverizing in which a machine chews up existing asphalt and part of the road base which is then used to form a new base for asphalt.
The roads to be pulverized include two blocks of Agar Ave. from Molitor St. to Braun St., the 4600 and 4700 blocks of Straume Ave. and McConnell Ave. on the bench from Marshall St. west to Kalum Lake Drive.
“We’ve got a whole bunch of them (this year),” said the city’s roads foreman Henry Craveiro. “We try to pick roads where we feel the base is suitable.”
By suitable, Craveiro is talking about roads with a base that needs minimal work before pavement can be laid, either in the form of pulverizing and grinding into the base, or milling the top layer of asphalt and laying on top of it.
“We call it a mill and fill,” said Craveiro.
Another $635,255 will be spent on milling a road’s surface and putting on a fresh asphalt overlay. Locations for this work include Lakelse Ave. from Eby St. to Emerson St., Kalum St. from Lakelse Ave. to Park St. in addition to a small bit of Sparks St. in that area, and Sparks St. from Lakelse Ave. to Lazelle Ave.
There is one major road reconstruction project this year and it’s taking place in the Horseshoe on the 4500 Block of Scott Ave. from Kalum St. to Hanson Rd. This will also involve work on the underlying water lines.
Still to be finished from last year’s work plan are small touch ups on Davis Ave. from Kalum St. to Sparks St.
Top soil and grass seed will be put down on the verges of last year’s McConnell Ave. reconstruction project on the bench.
“We don’t have a timeline on any of this for this year because we haven’t finalized a schedule to coordinate things,” said city works official Herb Dusdal of the work.