By Jesse Wood
July 5, 2012. As you might have assumed seeing the white outlines over the manholes on Rivers and King streets in the past week, roadwork will take place in the near future – all of which will be done at night, though.
In a couple weeks, Maymead Inc will start resurfacing Rivers Street on ASU campus from Water Street near Southern States to the intersection at the Convocation Center at U.S. 321.
That Rivers Street project’s deadline is August 15, after which the paving company will start resurfacing King Street in downtown Boone from Straight Street to Hardin Street
During both projects, milling of the roads will occur, so this is not a “band aid” fix, according to Doug Eller, assistant resident engineer for the N.C. Department of Transportation.
“It’s just apart of our normal resurfacing program. We’ll mill down some of the old asphalt and put new surface out,” Eller said. “It’s a method that happens a lot through towns with a fixed elevation tied to it. You can’t keep paving higher and higher and changing elevations. In those situations, it has to be milled down to be surfaced [without] adjusting the elevations.”
All the work will take place at night from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. On Rivers Street, one milled lane going in both directions will be open for several days, according to Don Greer, N.C. Division Manager with Maymead Inc. The project should be completed in a week.
King Street will have one lane open – with flaggers positioned to direct traffic. The resurfacing of King Street will take about three or four days.
In January, Maymead won a $3.6 million dollar contract from the NCDOT to pave these roads along with 24.3 miles of other roadways in Avery and Watauga counties.