Rubber Chip Seal Failures and Cape Seal Pilot

At a glance

Based on auto-generated captions; details may be misheard.

What: problems with last year's rubber chip seal pavement preservation work (loose stone, shoving) and what DPW and the Department of Transportation and Mobility will do instead or differently.
Where it stands: discussed 2026-08-25 as part of the 2025 Pavement Management Plan review. Chip seal money for this year was put on hold and is funding a cape seal pilot that has gone to bid.
Next: revised specifications; inspection of roads councilors say failed; the pilot results.

Excess loose stone, worse on the city's steeper slopes.
Street parking reduced the effectiveness of post-application sweeping; unswept stone then collected where cars were cleared in winter and was thrown onto lawns.
Some shoving on steeper streets when applied on very hot days (near 90 degrees).
Meant to be cleaned up by sweeping at day one, a week and a month; DPW said there was no major rise in catch basin cleaning (sewers staff report).

Remedial specifications are being drafted with the contractor, DPW, the Department of Transportation and Mobility and the consultant.
Cape seal pilot (rubber chip seal followed by microsurfacing) out to bid, paid from the chip seal budget line; costs about two to three times chip seal and limits later treatments.
Microsurfacing and ultra-thin bonded wearing course are smoother but crack at the surface; cracks are crack sealed.
Some already treated roads may take a cape seal or microsurfacing over the top.
DPW asked councilors to send locations where chip seal failed so it can inspect and involve the contractor; it does not believe every road failed.

Luis A. Ojeda and Robert A. Bilotta favor moving away from chip seal, citing storm drains and cleanup.
Tony Economou asked about cape sealing or microsurfacing roads that did not hold, and about inspecting failed chip seal.
A closing speaker still favors chip seal where it works, calling the failures a roll of the dice.

About 21 minutes across 1 meeting (from transcript timestamps; approximate).

Meeting	Minutes
2026-08-25 - Public Works and Traffic and Parking Joint Committee	21

2026-08-25 - Public Works and Traffic and Parking Joint Committee — Chip seal failures explained by Mello; cape seal pilot funded from the chip seal line; hot-in-place recycling dropped; councilors asked about alternatives, storm drains and fixing failed roads; DPW asked for failed-road locations.