Sealed Pavement Rehabilitation – Up River Road

About this project

Each year, we undertake a number of sealed road maintenance and improvement programs, including:

• Major Patching
• Sealed Pavement Rehabilitation
• Annual Resurfacing

Our Sealed Pavement Rehabilitation program targets roads that have numerous failures and significant roughness and require full-width reconstructions.

Roads identified for this level of works have generally reached a condition where our other sealed road renewal programs are not sufficient to bring the road back to an acceptable standard.

Approximately 2.35km of Up River Road, across three locations has been identified for full width rehabilitation in stages over the next two to three financial years, subject to budget availability. Other sections of this nearly 12km long stretch of road will also receive isolated repairs and resurfacing treatments as necessary over a similar period.

Why was this project undertaken?

The ‘pavement’ of a sealed road refers to the various layers of crushed rock, gravels and natural material which exist under the black sealed surface. This sandwich of compacted materials provides the structural base of the road that supports the traffic while the thin bitumen surface acts as the waterproofing layer to prevent the pavement from getting excessively wet and falling apart.

Over a road's life, traffic slowly breaks down the pavement materials until they can no longer support the traffic loads, which causes them to deform and ultimately fail. These sections of road have been subject to numerous pavement failures and been ‘patched’ over many years using a combination of asphalt and stabilising treatments. Unfortunately, certain sections of the road have continued to fail which prompted this larger scale rehabilitation treatment proposal.

What is happening and when?

Initial site investigation works will be carried out to inform a rehabilitation design process. This will include drilling several test bores in the road surface and material testing to develop the most appropriate treatment for the road. Design work will be completed now for all stages of works proposed over the next two to three years. The subsequent works are likely to involve the incorporation of new road base materials, strengthening of existing road gravels, before the application of a new seal surface. This will include the shoulders of the road and some clearing of roadside drains as necessary. Any driveways within the work area will need to be adjusted to smoothly accommodate the slight increase in road surface level following the new material additions. Affected property owners will be contacted directly, in advance of road works to discuss these works if applicable.

Site investigation works are proposed to be completed over 4 consecutive days commencing mid-April with actual road rehabilitation works typically occurring during the drier summer months.

What is the impact of these works?

Access to properties will be maintained throughout the works although short delays due to single lane closures will be unavoidable at different times and we appreciate the communities understanding whilst we complete both the upcoming site investigations and future civil works.