Overlay 2022

The Overlay 2022 project is the most recent iteration of the City’s Annual Road Maintenance Program. This program has evolved over the years, using new pavement materials and technologies, creating and utilizing a pavement management system, and piloting different treatment methods. The City’s Overlay 2022 project mill and paved twenty-seven residential, collector, and arterial streets citywide, and was funded in part by RMRA.

The project utilized three different types of asphalt: conventional, rubberized, and fiber reinforced. El Cajon has been installing rubberized asphalt (RAC) on major thoroughfares for over a decade. RAC products have demonstrated enhanced durability, noise reduction, crack resistance, and better longevity with respect to conventional asphalt (AC). RAC is produced by grinding up old tire rubber and incorporating it into the asphalt binder, but it can cost up to 50% more per ton than AC. Fortunately, the City received a $350,000 grant from CalRecycle to offset the cost difference between AC and RAC. This grant allowed us to pave an additional 136,000 square feet of roadway. Of the twenty-seven project streets, eight of them were overlaid with a 1/2″ rubberized Superpave mix (1/2” RHMA-G-SP). The paving thickness ranged from 0.15’ to 0.20’, depending on the function classification and existing conditions of the streets. During this project, over 11,000 tons of RAC were installed, which recycled over 29,000 rubber tires into the new asphalt.

This project was also the City’s first pilot test to install fiber reinforced asphalt. O’Connor Street is a small cul-de-sac in an industrial area of the City that acts as Waste Management’s prime entrance/exit to one of their recycling facilities, and it has been failing for years due to all the heavy refuse trucks that drive it daily. The existing pavement section varied from 2”-4” deep, and the repair was limited by utility constraints and accessibility requirements during construction. We decided to use fiber reinforced asphalt to provide more strength and crack resistance, without needing to significantly increase the pavement section. For an additional $20/ton, we were able to mill and pave 4” of fiber reinforced asphalt in one night, causing very minimal disruptions to Waste Management’s refuse collection schedules. The City will continue to monitor O’Connor Street over the years to see how well the fiber reinforcement performs.

In addition to using various type of asphalt, the Overlay 2022 project included complete streets components as well. The project added new continental crosswalks for pedestrian safety, installed new video detection cameras for enhanced signal capabilities, and utilized the El Cajon Bicycle Master Plan to add new bike lanes to streets that didn’t previously have any. Overall, the Overlay 2022 project demonstrates the City’s continued efforts to improve our roads using new technologies, sustainable materials, and complete streets.