19th Street construction stalled as contractor awaits hot mix approval
Road construction along 19th Street near Texas Tech and Covenant Medical Center is at a standstill while a hot-mix asphalt design is pending approval, a Texas Department of Transportation spokesperson told the Avalanche-Journal Wednesday.
Hot mix is "a combination of stone, sand or gravel bound together by asphalt cement," according to the TxDOT website. "After it is mixed at a high temperature, laid and compacted, the result is an improved driving surface for the traveling public."
Dianah Ascencio, public information officer for TxDOT in Lubbock, told the A-J the contractor's mix design for the portion of 19th Street from Memphis Avenue to University Avenue has not yet been approved.
"The contractor’s mix designs have not met specifications and will need to be adjusted before they can get approval to place the mix and pave the road," Ascencio said.
"When that does happen, as long as temperatures stay relatively warm, which means about 40 degrees and rising, our contractor will be able to place the asphalt," Ascencio said in a previous story.
More: TxDOT says 19th Street construction moving along in Lubbock, asks for patience
Hot mix design approval has been pending for this section of 19th Street, which runs concurrently with State Highway 114 and U.S. Highway 62, since at least late November 2022, when the A-J last checked on the status of the project. At the time, drainage work was also ongoing on the nearly $26 million project that began over the summer and was initially projected to take three years to complete, with the work moving in phases.
Ascencio said in November that repairs to the subgrade (bottom layer of the road) on the westbound lanes of the street have been completed. Once the westbound lanes are repaved, traffic will be moved onto the new pavement and work will commence on the eastbound lanes. Repairs to that half of the street will not be as extensive, she said.
"We will mill off about two inches of the top layer of the portion of 19th Street that traffic is on currently, but there's a difference: We're not going to do as in-depth of work as what we've done on this first portion," Ascencio said at the time. "We are going to mill the two inches off and then we are going to open the road back up to traffic.
"But with that said, there may be other short-term lane closures as crews make some deeper repairs just to spots of 19th Street," Ascencio added. "Then in late spring or early summer, our crews will come back and they'll place the final surface on that portion of a 19th Street and restripe."
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: 19th Street construction stalled as contractor awaits hot mix approval
