Flat & black. That’s how a street with a brand new coat of asphalt ought to look. This is view of Gerard Drive looking east toward I-494. Its new surface of asphalt is only a few days old. And did it ever look nice with a little bit of rain on it from this morning’s sprinkle. Of course the street is flat, but it’s certainly not level. Every street must drain properly so that it remains safe to drive on during the rain. This where the civil engineers enter the picture. They design our roads to look flat, yet drain properly. We have several civil engineers on staff with the City. They do great work in designing public improvements that look good, but function safely.
The City completed Gerard Drive this past week along with several other streets in Topview Neighborhood: Roberts Drive, Ann Court, Gordon Drive, and Interlachen Court. The project included reconstruction of curbs and gutters, repairing storm sewer catch basins, and repairing manholes. We try to fix everything with the street before we do an asphalt resurfacing project so that we don’t have to come back and ruin the new asphalt by digging into it for some reason.
Repair projects like these can be a real pain in the butt for the neighborhood. There’s noise. It’s dirty. It’s inconvenient in many ways. But, maintaining our streets and other public improvements is something the City must do. We try to minimize the inconvenience, but we’ll never get it to zero. We appreciate the patience and support we get from neighborhoods for these projects. In the end, after the construction is completed and the everything has calmed down, I think most people feel it’s all worth it.
