Notification
As with all paving projects, keeping residents and road users notified and informed of upcoming activities is generally helpful in minimizing confusion, motorist delays, and complaints. Because vehicles traveling on new slurry seal before it has cured sufficiently will cause damage, extra care should be taken to adequately inform the public and other stakeholders regarding this work.
Notification practices vary from agency to agency and from job to job, but some common forms of notification include one or more of the following:
- Letters and/or e-mails to all affected parties
- Hand-delivered notices to properties abutting the project
- Temporary “No Parking” signs at appropriate intervals on the project
- Electronic message boards set up in advance of the work taking place
- Reverse 911 automated telephone messaging to property owners
- Posting project information on the agency’s website
- Social media messaging of the upcoming work
- Conventional media (TV, radio and newspaper) notices
Notification message content also varies, but usually includes the following information to address six basic questions:
- What? (a brief description of the treatment being applied)
- Where? (the street names and limits of work for each)
- When? (the days, dates and hours of work including a proviso for weather or other unforeseen delays)
- Why? (an explanation that this is a preventive maintenance treatment being installed to cost-effectively extend the life of the pavement and to avoid poor ride conditions)
- How? (a general sequence of construction events including their potential impacts on travel times and roadway use)
- Who? (the names of those involved with the project including who to contact with questions)
A thoughtfully conceived and executed notification plan can greatly enhance public satisfaction with pavement preservation projects including slurry seal.
General Preparation
General Preparation
- Perform patching of any potholes, alligator cracking, base failure or other severe distresses.
- Perform crack sealing of any cracks wider than ¼ inch (0.6 cm).
- Clean the surface of all loose or hardened material, vegetation, oil spots, etc.
Treat vegetation with herbicide early to prevent it from growing back following the project.
- Protect utility castings and drop inlets from the slurry seal.
- Thermoplastic pavement markings should be abraded and removed from the roadway, as should heavily built up layers of epoxy or waterborne paint and reflective glass beads. The existing surface should be thoroughly cleaned before applying slurry seal.
STOCKPILE
The contractor will set up a staging area for the stockpiling of materials, equipment storage and maintenance. During the construction operations, truck mounted pavers or nurse trucks/support units will be loaded with material at the stockpile and driven to the project.
- The stockpile should be close to the project to minimize transit time.
- The stockpile should be arranged for optimized traffic flow, such that trucks can be filled with multiple materials at once. This will increase safety and minimize time required.
PREVENTING STOCKPILE CONTAMINATION
It is critical to the quality of the project that stockpiled materials do not become contaminated or contaminate the staging area.
- In spite of normal precautions taken with the aggregate, an occasional large stone may get into the aggregate supply.
- Oversized stones can become lodged in the rear squeegee and cause drag marks in the mat.
Screen the material immediately prior to loading the truck mounted paver or mobile support unit if oversize is present in the aggregate. This way, there is no possibility of contamination from re-handling the material.
During, and especially at the completion of a slurry seal project, it is important that all areas involved be kept clean and orderly. Final acceptance of the job should be deferred until the inspector is satisfied that all areas involved have been restored to their original state of cleanliness.
Inspect the loading area daily, with special emphasis on the emulsion loading area to ensure that all areas are kept clean and orderly.
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