Summer Sealing Season Finished
There will be less road work signs in town from this week as the Gore District Council sealing programme season draws to a close.
The Gore District Council Roading Asset manager Murray Hasler said contractors were kept busy with approximately 17.5km of reseals being completed on a mix of rural and urban roads.
“We aim to do approximately 5 percent of the total length of sealed network per season to keep existing seals waterproof,” Hasler said.
The seal was important as it kept water from the underlying pavement, an issue that can cause major problems over time.
“Various existing seals have differing lifespans depending on the type of seal. Some have relatively short lives and others have longer lives, so it’s a matter of keeping an eye on the existing seal as they get close to their expected end of life and hopefully resealing it at the optimum time.”
Both residents and road users had shown a great deal of patience and cooperation throughout the busy period, he said.
“The contractors in all cases have alerted the neighbouring property owners and residents that we would be resealing their roads, and while sometimes plans are interrupted by unsuitable weather the public have cooperated by keeping their vehicles off the side of the road,” he said.
“We’re pretty thankful to the residents and road users.”
While the sealing season may be over, a busy time now begins as the roading team prepare sites for the next season’s reseals during Autumn, he said.
“That may be interrupted if we have an early onset of winter. There’s also winter maintenance activities such as gritting and snow grading. We've recently reopened the ice warning signs at traditional frost problem sites in preparation”
The team were also preparing to adjust a speed hump at the Gore approach to the Ontario St bridge that spans the Waikaka stream.
Two speed humps were created to slow the approach of heavy vehicles onto the bridge, however the severe bump at the end of the bridge has been annoying bridge users, especially truck drivers, since it was installed. The bends in the approach road combined with the remaining gentler speed hump will be enough to keep approach speeds down. A recent upgrade to the bridge has enabled the weight restriction to be removed from the bridge. Removal of the unnecessary bump completes this work, Hasler said.
“We are going to be carrying out some work to flatten out the bridge end speed hump to give a smoother passage for travellers, which will come as a relief to many,” he said.
