Residents may be wondering why some streets are chosen for roadwork instead of others so we spoke to City of Moncton Project Engineer René Lagacé.
He said the current work on roads like Vaughan Harvey Boulevard, Mountain Road, and Morton Avenue is microsurfacing, not actual repaving.
“Microsurfacing is just a thin layer of asphalt that we’re applying on the street that’s in decent condition, and that’s just to extend its life,” says Lagacé. “Kinda like, let’s say your deck is starting to peel off, you’re not going to replace the whole deck, you’re just gonna put a new stain on it, that’s kinda like the approach here.”
He says microsurfacing extends the lifetime of the road surface for 3 to 4 years.
In contrast, Lagacé says an expensive full reconstruction is needed for the worst streets like St. George, Elmwood, and Queen.
“We’ll time [this work] to make sure that the undergound infrastructure like water and sewer will coincide with that reconstruction,” says Lagacé. “So that’s why sometimes we’ll see streets that are not in great shape not being done, because we’re trying to line up our budgets so we can do the water and sewer at the same time.”
Lagacé adds when the new layer of asphalt is added in a microsurfacing project, the driving surface may initially feel rougher to drivers, but he says that will fade quite quickly into a smooth surface.
