What we know
The project has gone out for bids, and city officials will continue to procure them through the end of September. A contract is expected to be awarded in October, City Manager Sylvia Carrillo-Trevino said during a Bastrop City Council meeting Aug. 26.
Carrillo-Trevino previously noted that design is approximately 60% complete.
“There are some water lines and wastewater lines along Hwy. 71 that need to get repaired,” she said. “We are [working] with the contractor to move them to the other side of Water [Street] and to some of those other streets that need infrastructure repair. We're going to do that via pipe bursting.”
Pipe bursting is a method for replacing underground pipes without the need for extensive excavation, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The details
Carrillo-Trevino highlighted that street improvements in Bastrop are broken down into three areas:
- Preventative maintenance, such as crack sealing with HA5 High-Density Material Bond
- Repairs, such as mill and overlay—a road maintenance technique used to repair and improve existing pavement surfaces
- Complete reconstruction
What residents should know
Carrillo-Trevino told council members that officials will update the city’s website with a priority list for other streets in the future, after Bastrop Mayor Ishmael Harris expressed interest in reconstruction projects for smaller streets.
“I know it feels like we’re only working on the preventative maintenance stuff, and we’re ignoring all the others,” she said. “We’re not. It just takes us a little bit of time to review it and engineer it, to make sure that when we go to [reconstruct] a street, we don't have to touch it again.”
Council member Cynthia Meyer called the plan for Linden, Farm and Water streets “monumental.”
“I’m thinking we could have a ribbon-cutting,” she said.
