North Cascade Newsletter:
Hi all,
What a weekend! If you were up there at the highest traffic volume times on Saturday or Sunday, the delays exceeded the 20 minute target and the work zone that the pilot car was guiding traffic through got longer and longer as the paving could finally progress at a normal rate (7 to 10 miles a day, instead of the 2 miles we’d been averaging due to the too-cool temperatures and fog and precipitation up through last Wednesday when it finally started to warm up.)
We didn’t feel like we could say no when Central Washington Asphalt wanted to work through the weekend due to the first dependable forecast for hot weather that would allow them to finish the chip work.
Sunday evening the 30 miles of chip sealing was done. Today, the brooming of loose rock continues with the 35 mph speed limit and pilot car controlled traffic. Tuesday and Wednesday there won’t be any pavement work (or any or any more speed restrictions) as the curing continues. Thursday and Friday, you’ll encounter some short delays where crews are installing new guideposts on the shoulders and painting the new stripes.
Next week, if weather continues to cooperate, the final fog seal may be applied. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, the plan is to install the new reflective pavement markers (we call them RPMs) on the fog lines. Remaining work (through, hopefully, no later than Labor Day) will then include new sign installation and applying the permanent plastic pavement markings (arrows, stop bars, etc). The plastics go down last because the pavement underneath has to be cured (dry) to the point that the markers will permanently bond to the pavement.
Part of the rush to take advantage of last weekend’s hot weather is the necessity for having the new surface COMPLETELY cured and compacted before the first snow plow blade hits it, which has come as early as October in some years. Properly curing a chip seal before fall like the one on SR 28 east of Soap Lake in the Columbia Basin is pretty dependable with daytime temperatures of 90+ and nighttime temperatures around 70. At a mile high over the North Cascades, the curing is anything but dependable due to too many days/hours of cool temperatures and high moisture. If there aren’t enough hot and dry days between now and that first snow, the risk is that the new surface will peel up when the plow blades drop. You may recall that the highway didn’t open until a month later than normal, so this project started a month late, too.
I’ll let you know if something changes, but for now – take solace in the fact the chip seal application is DONE.
Jeff
[email protected] 509.667.2815
PS. I was up there last Wednesday. I took some pictures of the chip seal and guardrail work as well as the drainage repair projects and some interesting footprints(?) that I'll finish processing and get Dustin to post on our Flickr site.
