Summertime in Bel Air is a time for concerts and movies in the park, July 4 celebrations, camps, but it’s also a season for a very important service provided by the Town, that being road repairs.
Contractors have been around town, repaving sections of road in residential neighborhoods as well as commercial areas.
The Department of Public Works oversaw $335,000 worth of road improvement projects, funded in the Town’s fiscal 2024 budget, which were completed this summer. The Board of Town Commissioners approved in early May a contract with Goettner Construction, of Edgewood, to complete the street repairs.
Six projects were covered in the budget, including a section of Hickory Avenue between Lee Way and Broadway, Marketplace Drive between Route 24 and Tollgate Road by the Tollgate Marketplace shopping center, along with South Kelly Avenue between the Bel Air Town Center and Chick-fil-A restaurant on Baltimore Pike. Residential streets include West Broadway between Williams Street and Richardson Street, Dorsey Road between Foxcroft Drive and Linwood Avenue and Foxcroft Drive between Linwood Avenue and Idlewild Road.
The repaving projects started in June, with the final one happening along Marketplace Drive between Tollgate Road and Route 24 during the second week of August.
Town officials endeavor to repave roads on a 15 to 20-year cycle, with different sections of street getting repaved each year according to Public Works Director Steve Kline. He noted that Hickory Avenue was last repaved in 2010, as an example.
“What drives the whole cycle is money,” he said – about $300,000 is budgeted for street repairs each year.
Each project slated for the 2024 fiscal year, which ended June 30, is classified as “mill and overlay,” meaning construction crews use machinery to grind down the top layer of the road – going down 2 to 4 inches – and then putting a new layer of asphalt on top. In addition to the mill and overlay, repaving projects often include replacing signs and rebuilding storm drain inlets before the new layer of asphalt is put down.
“Basically, we’re refurbishing the whole street’s infrastructure,” Kline said.
The repaving projects typically happen during the summer, overlapping with the end of one fiscal year June 30 and the start of the next one on July 1, as warm weather is ideal for putting down asphalt, according to Kline.
Weather that is “nice and hot” gives workers more time to properly roll and flatten the hot asphalt before it cools and sets, Kline said.
“It stays tighter and flatter,” he said. “It’s easier to work with when it’s warm.”
Five repaving projects are in Public Works’ approved budget for fiscal 2025, also at a cost of $335,000. The street sections include East Ellendale Street between Rock Spring Road and Franklin Street, Roland Avenue between Howard Street and Hall Street, West Gordon Street between Williams Street and Bond Street, Atwood Road at Catherine Street and East Broadway between Ardmore Way and Shamrock Road.
Public Works will not always do a full resurfacing of a section of road. Sometimes it will just be patched where the road is “alligatoring” with a series of small, interconnected cracks that resemble the skin of an alligator, or individual cracks are sealed to prevent water from getting into the road surface.
Such fixes prolong the life of a road, meaning a more expensive mill and overlay can be delayed.
“We have a fixed budget for all the street repairs and resurfacing,” Kline said.
Not all roads in Bel Air are under the purview of the Department of Public Works, however. Major roads such as Baltimore Pike, Route 24, Bond Street, Main Street, Churchville Road, as well as some sections of Broadway, are part of state-numbered roads such as Route 1, Route 22 and Route 924, so it falls to the state of Maryland to maintain them.
Contact Media and Public Relations Specialist David Anderson at 410-838-7181 or danderson@belairmd.org.