News and Press Releases Thursday, May 27, 2021

We've talked about why and how we chip seal, but where and when do we chip seal? The roads are pretty much on a schedule.

Ada County is broken into Six Preventative Maintenance Zones and each year we chip seal all the arterial and collector roadways and 50 percent of the residential roadways in one of these zones. Arterial and collector roadways are chip sealed once every 6 years and residential roadways are every 12 years.

This year we will be chip sealing in Zone 2 which is South of I-84 to Lake Hazel Road, Five Mile west to McDermott. ACHD crews will treat 308 lanes miles of road!

You can use ACHD's interactive chip seal map to follow along throughout the process. This website feature allows you to see the areas where treatments are planned and when they are completed.

If you've been in the Treasure Valley for some time, you probably know that chip seal comes with warmer weather. Chip seal operations begin the first week of June. This year is no different; the season is planned to kick off Tuesday, June 1st.

But why is this treatment done in the summer? It's because of the weather. Pavement temperatures have to be at least 60 degrees for chip seal to be effective. If it is too cold, the oil will not adhere to the road surface and would easily peel off. Plus, the weather is more predictable in the summer.

ACHD crews are expected to complete the 2021 chip seal operations in September.

We appreciate you taking the time to learn more about this annual preventative maintenance process. Be sure to follow us on social media for regular updates and view our interactive map to follow along as we go. We appreciate your patience and heightened caution as we work to better the roads in Ada County.