BOISE, Idaho — There’s four seasons, and then there’s chip sealing season in the Treasure Valley. Chip sealing is meant to protect streets from water and weather damage and keep them in good condition.
Every part of the Treasure Valley is in a zone, and each zone gets chip sealed every seven years, according to the Ada County Highway District (ACHD). This year, ACHD was working on Zone 5 – which was north of the Boise River -- the north end and the east end of Boise.
They had hoped to complete 439 lane miles, but only finished 301. Shandy Lam, a spokesperson for ACHD, said that was because of weather and operational inefficiencies.
Crews had to take a break for seven days in the heat of the summer – due to high temperatures and poor air quality.
In addition, Lam said one challenge was working in the North End of Boise – where limited parking created operational inefficiencies. On top of that, ACHD was operating with two chip seal crews, rather than one, and several new operators were just learning the process, Lam said.
Lam said ACHD focuses on arterial and collector roads before residential roads, because those are the roads that are the most used. This year, residential roads were the ones that weren’t chip sealed.
Because each zone gets chip sealed every seven years, it could be another seven years until those missed roads are touched, but Lam said they will continue to monitor pavement conditions and evaluate what is needed.