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Overlay (Street Paving)

Project typeStreet repaving
Project value$4,160,000
Project scheduleSpring 2022 - Fall 2022
Contractor nameWatson Asphalt

Overlay Program
The City of Kirkland repaves up to 10 lane-miles of its more traveled streets every year. The Capital Improvement Program pays for about half of those lane-miles. The other half is funded by the Streets Levy, which voters approved in 2012.
Repaving a street can extend its useful life by 10 to 20 years.

The process begins in early summer, with a task known as "lowering iron," during which workers remove utility lids to prevent the damage they would otherwise sustain during the grinding stage.

The grinding stage is when contracted crews use milling machines to remove the top three to five inches of a street's asphalt. Once crews have removed the street's damaged layer of asphalt, they are ready--assuming good weather--to lay down its new asphalt surface.

Kirkland's goal for its street preservation program is to improve the score of its arterial network to 70 on the Pavement Condition Index. The street network's Pavement Condition Index score at the end of 2015 was 65.4. In 2018, it was 70. Some of that improvement, however, can be attributed to a change in how the City measures its street conditions.

Discussions

Timeline

Street selection and design

November - April

Upgrade sidewalk curb ramps

May - August

Neighborhood street preservation

August - September

Repaving streets

June - October

Updates & information

Update (Oct. 27, 2022) --

Kirkland’s 2022 street paving contractor is alternating lane-closures this week on Lakeview Drive between Lake Washington Boulevard and Northeast 64th Street and on Kirkland Way between Sixth Street and Northeast 85th Street while its crews re-establish the maintenance hole lids they removed before grinding the street and re-paving it.

The daily lane-shifts begin at 7 a.m. and end at 3 p.m.

The Kirkland contractor is repaving sections of seven streets this summer and next spring. Those streets are:

Kirkland Way, from Sixth Street to Northeast 85th Street (Moss Bay)
Third Street, from Central Way to Seventh Avenue (Moss Bay/Norkirk)
138th Place Northeast, from its street-end to 124th Avenue Northeast (Kingsgate) and
139th Place Northeast, from its street-end to 124th Avenue Northeast (Kingsgate)
123rd Avenue Northeast, between 138th and 139th places northeast (Kingsgate)
Waverly Way, Fifth Avenue West to 10th Avenue West (Market)
Lakeview Drive, Lake Washington Boulevard to Northeast 64th Street (Lakeview)

2012 Streets Levy

Kirkland's voters approved a streets levy in 2012 to provide the City with the resources necessary to maintain a functional street network. Every year since, the City of Kirkland has released an accountability report on stewardship of those funds and progress toward those goals. Read the 2019 Levy report.(PDF, 2MB)