Seal Coating

The city has been playing catchup when it comes to road maintenance on paved roads.  By this we mean seal coating.  The city did not have a policy or schedule adopted to seal coat roads.  As far as we can tell roads had never been seal coated.   The goal of the council was to preserve what we had and taking care of all the paved roads in town that would benefit from a seal coating was a rather large task. 

A seal coat generally seals the roadway with a tar/oil material covered by rock.  This rejuvenates the asphalt, fills in small voids in the pavement and adds a new wear course to the road.  With the seal coating we have accomplished we added an additional step, that of a fog seal.  The fog seal applies a thin layer of the tar/oil mixture to keep the rock material in place. It also further seals the roadway surface. 

In an effort to get caught up with seal coat needs the city is investing heavily in a project this year spending an estimated $210,400 to seal coat a number of roads in the city.  The roads proposed to be seal coated this summer include: Ski Chalet, Ranchette, Fallen Leaf Circle, Robinhood Lane, Scenic Overlook, White Overlook Drive, Hillside Pass, Winter Trail, Terminal Road, Channel Heights, Lakeshore Drive, Bayview Place, Breezy Point Blvd., Ouray Drive, Chickasaw Circle, Pueblo Circle, Wildwood Court, Nickel Road, Nickle Woods Circle, and Rice Creek Drive.

In accomplishing this we will work with Crow Wing County on a cooperative bidding process as we have done in the past.  They do all the ground work on bid specifications, bidding, awarding the contract and do contract administration.  They then bill us for the project and their administration activities.  This has worked well for us.  The council approved this project at the January meeting.