Draper Bikeway 19

It’s all about the gaps. In this case, we see the first layer of asphalt freshly laid at the northeast corner of the bikeway, near where SE 89th and Stanley Draper Drive meet. This was part of the final drive to get the entire loop paved and finished. I shot this about a week ago.

Below is the section of the bikeway right at the main north entrance to the Draper recreational area. It was one of the last gaps closed, in part because it still has some heavy equipment parked in the staging area. Also, down in the bottom where it crosses the actual East Elm Creek itself (for which the reservoir is named), there was a lot of unfinished dirt work until just the past week or so.

But here is a gap that opened up after it was given it’s initial layer of blacktop, near SE 119th Street. There was a large crew working along the southern half of the eastern shore, putting in open culverts because heavy rains would move tons of dirt over the bikeway when they were just regular ditches. This was something I warned about a couple of years ago, and I don’t think it was in the original plans to resort to such extravagant measures. I’m pretty sure this represents an add-on. At any rate, the heavy equipment involved in creating these culverts tore up the single, rather thin layer of asphalt, in part because the lack of good drainage had weakened the soil under the pavement. I rode over it several times in a bad state until they pulled it up and rebuilt the bed. This will have to be repaved from scratch.

These last two photos show the East Elm Creek crossing below the dam in various stages of preparation. This represents the last unfinished gap to be closed. The first shot of it above is from last week. There was an ancient open culvert they finally broke up right where the previous work dead ended. In the second shot, that has been removed and the drainage is now routed out around the whole area. This was shot today, showing a bulldozer making the last surface shaping, showing that it will be a rather sharp zigzag curve. Notice that the curbs have already been laid down to the edge of this unfinished section. Just about 100 meters left here.

The other item of note is that the second layer for the north and east section was begun this morning. When I rode past the asphalt crew was starting right where the previous finished surface ended just a little shy of the northern end of the western shore. There was fresh tack on the section ahead of them, running off east and over the ridge, so they plan on slapping down a lot of asphalt today. There were four dump trucks already lined up ahead of the asphalt machine, waiting with their hot loads to dump into the mouth of that thing.