Quick Take
Various roads throughout Santa Cruz County will undergo resurfacing over the next few months, all funded by 2016's Measure D. However, the extensive repaving project is largely “a drop in the bucket” when it comes to improving county road conditions.
Santa Cruz County roads are in poor condition. A recent civil grand jury report stated that more than 63% of local roads are in “poor or failed condition” due to consistent underfunding, deferred maintenance and storm damage. However, along with $83 million programmed for county roads in this year’s budget, 2016 Measure D funds, which come out to about $17 million per year, are still available for additional transportation projects throughout the county — even if it’s only another small step in the right direction.
Each year since 2018, the county has done a project derived from Measure D funding, county civil engineer Casey Carlson told Lookout last week. This year, that looks like extensive resurfacing in multiple areas of the county throughout the summer, with completion expected by late summer or early fall.
Since early June, crews have begun work resurfacing roads in Aptos, Felton and Scotts Valley. Carlson said that the $2.2 million project involves asphalt-based work, chip seal work and slurry seal work in different sections of road.
Asphalt-based techniques look like what one thinks of when they think of repaving, creating a fairly smooth-looking new road surface. The county applies asphalt, the most expensive technique, to patch especially severe failed sections of road. Chip seal work — or in this case, rubber chip seal work — involves applying hot oil with rubber chunks mixed into it, which is then used to coat the layer of rock before it’s dropped onto the pavement. Carlson said this is one of the primary resurfacing techniques the county uses to fill less severe cracks. He added that crews typically use a combination of the various methods when resurfacing.
“Our engineers will go out to these different roads and evaluate what we think can do the best job on that road, for the least amount of money,” he said.
In addition, slurry seal work is used to get into finer cracks in the pavement and fill smaller areas and “microsurfacing,” which is a variant of slurry seal that has chemical additions to allow it to set faster. That technique lets crews layer the slurry to their desired thickness.
Even though the county will save as much money as possible during the project, traffic control, restriping and inspection add costs to any road project: “For instance, the slurry seal in the project is going to cost us $4.10 per square yard,” Carlson said, “but there are a lot of other things that go along with it.”
Even so, Carlson said Measure D was “a game-changer.” He added that the county has dealt with road funding deficiencies for 40 years, and grant funding is never guaranteed. But county roads remain in woeful condition, and Carlson knows this summer’s project is “largely a drop in the bucket.” He said that the county’s road network has about 600 miles, and over the past seven years, Measure D has enabled crews to resurface only six of those miles.
“If I’m getting six miles of road a year with Measure D, it would take me 100 years to get it all done at once,” he said. “And unless you’re rebuilding a road, you should plan on resurfacing every seven to 10 years.”
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Check out our Carmageddon road delay list here. This week, pay particular attention to:
- Bridge work, tree work and drainage work will cause one-lane traffic control on various sections of Highway 9 between 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. from Monday through Thursday. There will be one lane open with a traffic light controlling the flow of traffic in both directions at these stretches. Those areas are the sections between Camp Sycamore Road and the Paradise Park exit, Henry Cowell Redwoods Vista Point and Glengarry Road, Vernon Street and Exit Road, Alba Road and California Drive/Middle Road, and Main Street and Western Avenue.
- The Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency’s College Lake project will shut down one lane of traffic on Highway 129 between Locust Street and Main Street, which will result in one-way traffic control from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. from Monday through Friday until June 30. Travelers should expect delays of up to 15 minutes.
- Through the end of 2024, various sections of Soquel Drive between State Park Drive and Paul Sweet Road could be reduced to one lane of traffic as the Soquel Drive Buffered Bike Lane and Congestion Mitigation Project moves forward. The sections of road will be intermittently closed as work continues at multiple sites.
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