Thanks to Clothesline Laundromat for their support.
Potholes are par for the course with Minnesota weather, but West St. Paul is making strides in repaving roads. On top of a busy construction season, the city is also doing in-house overlays to bring drivers some relief.
What’s an in-house overlay? A bandaid approach where the city puts down a new layer of asphalt. It’s not a long-term fix, but it’s much cheaper and quicker than other approaches.
- It’s a new method where the city does the work in-house.
- See more on the various approaches to road repair for a comparison.
Where? It’s hard to miss major projects across the city, such as Annapolis and Thompson/Oakdale, but in-house overlays are generally quicker projects where one day it’s bumpy and the next it’s smooth. Livingston between Butler and Orme leading into Signal Hills is a perfect example.
Here’s a map of 2023 construction projects in West St. Paul, with in-house overlays noted in purple:
Progress: Last winter’s record snowfall is actually slowing down the paving process this summer.
- Public Works normally does tree trimming in winter, but the excessive snow had them focused on plowing, pushing tree trimming into spring and summer and delaying some paving.
- They may not get to every street on the above map this summer, though any they miss will be the first on the list next year.
Why is my street still a mess? While in-house overlays are a good short-term solution, they require the subgrade beneath the road to be in good shape. Some roads are too far gone for an overlay to be effective. Emerson and Lothenbach are good examples. Streets like that need to wait in line for a mill and overlay or a total reconstruction.
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