Synopsis
If you’ve driven around on the part of Westlake Village south of the 101, you’ve no doubt noticed all the street construction signs and work being done. Many have asked “what’s up with the street construction?” This is part of a good size project that Westlake Village is doing in conjunction with the City of Agoura Hills.
If there’s construction signs on your street, it’s important to read on — so that you know where to park, and how this will affect you.
In short, properly maintained streets have basically, an indefinite life span. Primarily, this means that two processes (slurry seal and overlays) are done on regular intervals. As a general rule of thumb, slurry seals need to be done every 5-7 years, and overlays are done every 20 or so years.
The original schedule for construction was slated to start on June 30th, but this has now been pushed back some due to asphalt plant availability. (Unfortunately, this is a typical occurrence each year due to the summer paving season by all the cities.) Right now, it looks like the first work will be the slurry work, and at the moment, it looks like that will start in late July.
Full Article
Slurry seal is a process of coating the existing pavement to replenish the oils in it. Think of it this way — if you apply lotion to your hands, they won’t crack — something similar happens with the streets.
Overlays are where the top asphalt surface needs to be replaced. The top portion (maybe 1/2 to 2 inches) of surface is removed (aka scraped off), and a rubberized asphalt concrete is overlayed onto the street.
The city has a comprehensive description of the slurry and overlay, along with schedules for individual streets at http://www.wlv.org/whats_new/paving.asp?s=3
You’ll want to make sure that your cars are not parked on these streets during the times of construction, so be aware of notices. And, if you are going to be on vacation, then definitely do not park on the street while you are away.
The scraping goes very quickly — maybe 30 minutes for a small cul-de-sac, and you can drive on it immediately. And, the overlays and slurry seals can also be driven on fairly quickly. Just be cognizant of the signs, timing, and that you may not want to pull from the freshly overlayed or slurried street into your driveway (unless you like hard to remove tracks ).
Here’s a map indicating which streets are being worked on. And, the above URL gives the schedule to date.
