DOWNEY - Work to rehabilitate Downey Avenue from 5th Street to Gallatin Road is scheduled to start by mid-January in 2011, after the City Council awarded a cash contract of $1.38 million to winning lowest bidder Silvia Construction, Inc. of Rancho Cucamonga which vied with eight other contractors.The pavement reconstruction, known as the Downey Avenue Pavement Rehabilitation Project, involves rehabilitation south, and then north, of Florence Avenue. According to the street segment condition rankings delineated in the city's so-called Pavement Management System, a computerized tool described by public works director John Oskoui as serving to identify street condition problem areas, determining the order of priorities in the city's ongoing street rehabilitation program, and even methods to optimize the outcome, the street segment from 5th Street to Florence Ave. rated in the 'acceptable' condition category and hence would require only grinding the existing pavement and constructing a 2-inch asphalt rubber hot mix surface course. The condition of the segment north of Florence to Gallatin Road was fingered as 'unacceptable' and hence would require pulverizing and cold milling the asphalt pavement, then resurfacing it with a 1-3/4" to 2-inch asphalt rubber hot mix surface course on a "suitably treated and stabilized base course." In Oskoui's report to the city council, the project's scope includes the "replacement of aging and damaged improvements, construction of new sidewalks and curb ramps, adjustment of utility boxes and covers to grade, the trimming, pruning and planting of new street trees, replacement of traffic signal loop detectors, striping, signage, pavement markings, and the replacement of aging water service meters and fire hydrants and the abandonment of old water distribution lines (and installation of new ones)." The capital improvement item was originally planned to include only that stretch from 7th Street to Gallatin Road but because Downey Avenue between Firestone Boulevard and 5th Street had been reconstructed in late 2001, it was decided to include the two block segments between 5th Street and 7th Street for pavement improvement as well rather than leave them unimproved. Silvia Construction is a regular bidder for such construction projects and is known to have satisfactorily done similar pavement resurfacing projects for other municipalities, including the cities of Chino Hills, Duarte, Whittier, Paramount, Compton and Long Beach. "The project should be substantially complete by the end of March, 2011," said Oskoui.

********** Published: December 2, 2010 - Volume 9 - Issue 33