Construction on Main St. Bishop has been halted for now. The schedule this week called for the final lift of pavement in downtown Bishop, but today the road looks like a lot like it did earlier in the week.

 

After weeks of progress and a better than expected traffic situation, Caltrans and the contractor hired to do the project may have hit a large snag. When we spoke with Robert Sanchez, the Caltrans engineer in charge of the project, he said that the asphalt material was not acting as expected. He explained that there are shiny areas of asphalt that could indicate that there is too much oil in the asphalt mix.

Caltrans engineers have asked that the contractor move on to the second project location near Mill Creek and Pleasant Valley while they analyze the asphalt to see what needs to be done to finish Main Street. The fear is that some areas may end up with the same soft deformed pavement that Caltrans was trying to fix in the first place.

Engineer Sanchez reports that so far the project is still on schedule to be done at the end of August. He says that they dont want to have to tear up any sections of the street and that since the contractor was within the specifications for the oil mix in the asphalt the State could end up paying for any additional costs.

Sanchez reports that much of the asphalt on Main Street appears to be just fine and that they will continue to analyze the situation to see what needs to be done.

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