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Keeping up with the ‘chores’ saves money, improves roads

At home, spring is a time for chores like cleaning out the gutters on your house, removing moss from your driveway, or other pesky projects that can only be put off for so long before they cause a more serious problem.

Over the next month, crews will be working on weekends to catch up with small repairs to road shoulders in unincorporated King County.

This weekend, the King County Road Services Division will begin catching up with its own list of deferred maintenance projects on roads in the unincorporated areas of the county. Just like any homeowner, the division’s goal is to fix small problems before they become big ones.

“Over the past two years, we haven’t had much time to do the smaller projects that are an important part of our roads maintenance program,” said Division Director Linda Dougherty. “We are glad to have this chance to catch up because the consequences of ignoring essential maintenance tasks is not only costly in the long run, but it also affects the safety of the public.”

Dougherty said her staff was very busy with storm response over the past two winter seasons, and related repairs stretched into spring. Then, when the dry weather arrived, there was always a long list of paving and major repair projects to complete. That is why the crews are mobilizing to work on their regular days off over the next month to tackle postponed chores around the county.

Maintenance Superintendent Tony Ledbetter said the first priority will be to restore road shoulders before small problems on the side of the road become big headaches on the driving surface.

By keeping on top of restoration work, the county hopes to avoid erosion problems like these.

Ledbetter said for the next several weeks the crews will be working on Fridays and Saturdays, depending on the weather, to clean up shoulders in unincorporated areas by removing vegetation, debris, sand from winter snowplowing, and then laying down a new layer of gravel. The restoration work will improve safety for motorists who use the shoulders in an emergency, and for pedestrians walking on the side of road.

Water trapped under the vegetation and debris is the biggest concern, because it can erode the shoulder and then begin eating away at the surface of the roadway, which can lead to cracks, potholes, and even sinkholes.

The Roads Division is planning on restoring about 300,000 lineal feet of shoulder this year, and the same amount in 2009.

“You’d rather repair the shoulder than the whole roadway,” said Ledbetter. “If you don’t take care of these smaller projects when you can, then you can end up with a much worse situation later on.“

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Updated: March 17, 2008

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