Along San Justo Road near Prescott Road in the San Juan Valley,
a San Benito County Public Works Department crew dug up an
”
old bump in the road
”
Wednesday, repaving the road surface torn up by years of farm
equipment crossing the road.
Along San Justo Road near Prescott Road in the San Juan Valley, a San Benito County Public Works Department crew dug up an “old bump in the road” Wednesday, repaving the road surface torn up by years of farm equipment crossing the road.
Assistant Public Works Director Arman Nazemi said such maintenance is routine and that road crews are out every day looking for uneven surfaces and cracks on San Benito County’s 416 miles of road.
Potholes and cracks – and vandalized and missing signs – are covered under maintenance programs. There are certain areas of the county in which roads are in constant repair because of heavy traffic, expansive soils and the constant movement of the earth along the fault lines.
Though most local earthquakes are minor, Nazemi said comparing road surfaces to the ongoing effect of minor tremors is like paper.
“It (the roads) just cracks up,” he said. “So far, we’ve been lucky not to experience any drastic road alignments on the surfaces.”
Areas with expansive soil such as San Juan Bautista have steady tension on the road surface during the rainy season, Nazemi said.
“This area has a lot of problems because in the rainy season it swells, then cracks,” he said.
The county’s annual budget of $1.7 million for road repairs comes from the state’s road maintenance program.
“That’s $4,086 per mile per year,” Nazemi said. “It should be about the same this year because everything is based on the mileage map.”
Nazemi said most county road crews work in the more-populated areas like San Juan Bautista, Aromas and Hollister. Those assigned to South County have more miles to cover and fewer repairs to make.
“A work truck on the average can put 200 miles on it in a day,” Nazemi said.
The City of Hollister maintains 90 miles of roadway – less than one-fourth that covered by the county – at an annual cost of $3.5 million. Part of that is covered under federal funds, according to Lawrence Jackson, deputy director of the city’s public works department.
Jackson said maintaining the city’s roads has a three-level priority.
“You treat the best roads first,” he said. “You have a road that is maybe three, two years old and there’s a little split in the road, you go and cover it with some asphalt slurry. You preserve what you have.”
San Juan Bautista City Manager Larry Cain said the city has 9.9 miles of roadway and spends very little on street maintenance – only $11,000 last year.
“We’re spending very little money because we’re saving it for the Fourth Street rebuild,” Cain said.
