Overlay (Street Paving)

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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 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.