Date: 2020-06-12
New Elm Estates Drive road maintenance future cost estimates
Work done:
• About 1.9 km of Shale base and Class A topped road built
◦ about 1.45 km of that re-coated with Class A in 2016
◦ moving the road sideways at the hill (2014) with lots of shale needed
• Large culvert and beaver excluder installed which dried up the inner beaver pond (2016)
• Spot filling of pot holes with shale in several places neither included in the distance covered.
• Historical cost of shale-base gravel-top is about $20. per linear metre of road on the last couple of large jobs; typically constructed as:
◦ 14 foot wide road
◦ 4 to 5 inches thick shale on average (Shale is $150 / 10 cu yd load historically)
◦ 3/4” to 1.5” thick gravel over-top (gravel is $20./ton as laid historically)
◦ Over-top with 1” at 14 ft wide costs $4.67/m. (maintenance)
Work remaining and build alternatives:
Remaining 2.9 km of road including all of Long Cove and Mint Brook to the end of all developed lots and the remainder of New Elm Estates Drive to Mint Brook, the gap at the hill, and out bound past the beaver pond to the highway. See the list in Table 1 and map in Figure 1.
Historical build uses 4.5” shale and 1.5” Class A gravel plus the machine time which has been about 15 percent of the shale cost. The road requires periodic over-top coating with Class C to maintain cover and smoothness. Can’t smooth this with a grader because of the shale base.
An alternative using Class C gravel in place of the shale would reduce the machine time at the expense of material for the base and allows a grader to maintain smoothness and spot-filling with gravel. Estimate with same thickness of of Class C as shale and same thickness of Class A and reduce the equipment burden to 2/3. The gravel road build estimate is about $29./m at current gravel prices. Alternatively, using only three inches of Class C gravel without shale or Class A is a half-step to get a good-enough road quality at a reduced cost of $15./m
| Section | Distance (m) | Shale road, historical ($) | Gravel Road, Estimate ($) | Gravel (3”) only Estimate ($) |
| Hill gap completion | 550 | $11,000.00 | $16,002.00 | $8,302.76 |
| Inner to Mint Brook | 283 | $5,660.00 | $8,234.00 | $4,272.00 |
| Mint Brook to Lot 2 | 460 | $9,200.00 | $13,379.00 | $6,939.77 |
| Outer part 1, to beaver pond | 306 | $6,120.00 | $8,911.00 | $4,627.78 |
| Outer part 2, beaver pond to highway | 640 | $12,800.00 | $18,624.00 | $9,665.75 |
| Long Cove part 1 | 446 | $8,920.00 | $12,970.00 | $6,726.69 |
| Long Cove part 2 | 225 | $4,500.00 | $6,542.00 | $3,391.50 |
The beaver pond culvert installation will require a culvert (~$550.) plus a load of gravel (~$350.) plus machine time which Ian Goldsmith can contribute. (estimate $1,000. materials plus Ian’s effort)
The section of road built in 2018 needs an over-top with Class A. That section had thinner gravel top when-built (to stretch the budget). We have had enough traffic to wear-through to shale proving we need the planned thickness. Estimate this work at $2,000. for the 1” cover on the 14 foot width.
Ian Goldsmith will be doing some pot hole filling with his equipment and a couple of loads of material that he is contributing beginning weed of 22nd June, 2020. That will help a lot.
Colour coded segments show green (done), red (to-do urgent), and yellow (to-do less urgent)
