Many homeowners in Canyon Creek have expressed an interest in receiving an update on the City of Austin street resurfacing that has been ongoing for around 3 weeks now for most of the streets in our neighborhood. The city’s Street and Bridge Dept has advised that the resurfacing of many streets in Canyon Creek is nearing completion for this year in the next week or two. The roadway seal coating process (AKA “chip seal”) being used is a process that requires an emulsifying agent to be applied to the roadway followed immediately by a distribution of a layer of aggregate on top. This is followed by the use of a mechanical street sweeper to remove most of the loose chip aggregate that did not bind to the emulsion. A "cure" period is required to achieve the roadway’s final surface condition. The cure period takes an average (depending on weather conditions) of 4-5 weeks to be completed. The emulsion applied to the streets is now gradually firmly binding to the aggregate and in 4-5 weeks should result in a smoother roadway surface than what currently exists and the roadway will also gradually turn to a noticeably darker color compared to the light to medium gray color of the roadway immediately after resurfacing. This seal coating process has been in use in Austin since the 1980s and is used in the majority of cases where street resurfacing is required for street maintenance. The seal coating process will never result in a road as smooth as a hot asphalt process, which is a much more costly process and requires significant roadway surface grinding and 1-1/2 to 2 inches of hot asphalt to be laid and rolled.

With regard to cul-de-sacs in our neighborhood, the “ends” and “elbows” on our cul-de-sacs have generally not yet been resurfaced and are scheduled for completion next year, likely in the May-June timeframe when the temperatures have increased enough to promote adequate and timely curing. A different resurfacing process called “slurry seal” will be employed on these cul-de-sacs. This different resurfacing process is required due to the inability of the standard chip seal resurfacing equipment to make the tight turns on cul-de-sacs while applying the emulsion and aggregate. This “slurry seal” process will basically spray on the roadway a mixture of emulsion and fine aggregate (gravel) or and/or coarse sand. This process will result in a smoother street surface than the seal coating (chip seal) process, but one that is not as durable as seal coating and one that will also take longer to allow vehicles on it. Our HOA is closely monitoring the street resurfacing being performed by city crews and will advise further on street resurfacing plans as they are finalized.