Slurry seal treatment doesn’t stop La Jollans’ concerns about road conditions
The city of San Diego tries to assuage worries about missed spots and the quality of resurfacing materials used.
As the city of San Diego continues a project to resurface roads in La Jolla with slurry seal, residents are finding places where crews appear to have missed a spot.
Other residents are concerned about the materials the city uses.
San Diego began applying the slurry seal — a pavement preservation method consisting of asphalt emulsion, sand and rock applied to the surface at an average thickness of a quarter-inch — on April 25. The project is expected to be completed in La Jolla on Wednesday, May 10.
Meanwhile, a project to fully repave La Jolla Parkway began May 1 and is expected to be completed by Memorial Day weekend.
A few days after the slurry seal work began, La Jollans began sending photos to the La Jolla Light of places where the slurry seal appears to have been applied around a parked vehicle on Avenida Cresta in Lower Hermosa and around an outdoor seating area on Silverado Street in The Village.
San Diego spokesman Anthony Santacroce said city transportation crews post “no parking” signs 72 hours in advance of work and “when slurry equipment is forced to work around vehicles that are parked in violation of the posted signs, they will return at a future date to make spot repairs.”
The city often tows cars parked in work zones, Santacroce said, “but sometimes the timing doesn’t work out.”
Material matters
La Jollan Ross Rudolph, a member of both the La Jolla Shores Association and La Jolla Traffic & Transportation boards, said he’s concerned that the quality of the asphalt materials used on La Jolla streets may not be good enough to keep the roads from needing frequent resurfacing.
“The streets here are a disgrace to our city,” he said.
He noted that he has lived and driven in places with terrible weather — Cleveland, Milwaukee and northern New Mexico — “yet the streets [in those places] were never as bad as in San Diego.”
Rudolph said he has observed that pothole fixes and new road surfaces don’t last very long.
Santacroce said the city “follows the rules, regulations and standards outlined in the 2021 Greenbook and 2021 City Supplemental Whitebook” for all construction and public works projects.
“Furthermore, the materials used are tested at the city’s Materials Testing Lab, where city engineers ensure standards are met every day,” Santacroce said.
He added that the materials used in pothole patching are sturdy and that filling potholes remains a priority for the city.
In February, Jorge Riveros, then-director of the San Diego Transportation Department, said pothole patches are intended to last one or two seasons, depending on factors including the size of the pothole, the traffic volume on the street and the materials used (which can be a hot or cold mix of bituminous asphalt or one of several proprietary blends from local vendors).
“It’s not meant to be a permanent fix,” Riveros said.
Santacroce said the city has reduced its open pothole backlog from more than 2,000 during January’s rains to less than 100 now. ◆
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