Charlottetown work goes to N.B. company

The tender to repair some of Charlottetown’s busiest streets went to a New Brunswick company.

Coun. Terry Bernard, chairman of the public works department, said that’s because no company in P.E.I. is capable of doing micro-sealing.

The city spent about $500,000 to micro-seal three separate streets recently, work that is essentially preventative maintenance.

“We had heard about it and knew New Brunswick had been using it for a couple of years. One of our engineers looked into it, got the research on it and got back to us and we thought we would give it a try and thought we would take the heaviest-used streets for testing,” Bernard said.

The process involves micro-sealing roads that have developed cracks or are showing some form of wear and tear. It involves spreading a thin layer of asphalt over the top of the cracks or problem areas to prevent water, salt and snow from seeping in. Without the micro-sealing process, more streets would need to be pulverized, milled and resurfaced within two or three years. “Nobody on the Island had the equipment needed to do it, so a firm from New Brunswick won the tender.’’ Micro-sealing was conducted on the following streets in Charlottetown.

- University Avenue, from Capital Drive to Belvedere Avenue;

- Capital Drive, from University Avenue to North River Road; - Longworth Avenue, from Belmont Street to Weymouth Street.

“You take streets that are starting to deteriorate, not necessarily in the state where you have to pave them.” Bernard said the process may have cost the city $500,000 now but, if it works, will save big bucks down the road.

He said just to resurface University Avenue, from Belvedere Avenue to Capital Drive would cost close to $1 million.

“You’re saving quite a bit of dollars (with micro-sealing).”

Bernard said it can extend the life of the street for up to eight to 10 years.