Repaving Atas. Ave. begins today

Creig P. Sherburne/Atascadero News • Heavy equipment is prepped and ready to roll over and repave Atascadero Avenue beginning Wednesday.

ATASCADERO — Atascadero Avenue will receive an overdue bit of rehab beginning today, Atascadero public works deputy director Geoff English said. The street will be repaved from Highway 41 to the area just south of San Gabriel Road. The bulk of the work is expected to take about 10 days, but crews will be on the job for the next month or so.

A $603,955.70 contract for the project was awarded to Paso Robles-based Ferravanti Grading and Paving and it is the first project of its kind in North County.

On a standard repaving project, English said, a few inches of the road are ground away and that material is trucked off. New material, including asphalt and associated oils, is laid down in its place.

“That’s a lot of truck traffic,” English said.

The method employed by Ferravanti is called “cold in-place recycling.” It’s similar in that the road is ground up, but instead of that aggregate being trucked away, it’s thrown into a hopper, introduced to new binding agents and immediately reused.

Equipment operator Doug Olson said that because the gear works the way it does, it’s a one-pass operation. The road will be ground up, remixed with oils and then immediately laid back down on the street.

Which means that as the heavy equipment behemoth rolls up an aging and somewhat neglected Atascadero Avenue, it will leave new road surface behind it.

Aside from the simplicity and single-step-ness of the equipment, it also reduces a great deal of noise and greenhouse gas by vastly reducing the number of truck trips and new materials required to finish the job.

Gary Ferravanti, one of Ferravanti Grading and Paving’s owners, said there will be traffic delays because the equipment in use will take up an entire lane. During that time, he said, there will be flagmen and other traffic control, but he asked that drivers use care while in the construction zone.

He also suggested that folks use alternate routs to get about their business “for the days of the major construction, Wednesday, Thursday, possibly Friday. And then again next week when we do the finish paving.”

Ferravantisaid he expects the work to take place between the hours of 7 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday until the project is complete.



For the complete article see the 07-25-2012 issue.

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