New Braunfels street needs a rebuild after three years

“The original design of the project was selected for its cost savings and efficiencies,

but that selection led to a less robust, less durable roadway for the number and weight of vehicles that use the road.”

City of New Braunfels

New pavement on a half-mile stretch of West San Antonio Street in downtown New Braunfels began failing just months after it was completed, forcing the city to begin temporary repairs this month while pursuing a long-term solution.

Work on the road between Walnut Avenue and Academy Avenue, which cost the city about $738,000, was completed in spring 2020. Within a couple of months, “we started to see some failures that continued to develop,” New Braunfels Public Works Director Greg Malatek said. “You just don’t see that in new pavement,” he said. “Once you start seeing that, it only gets worse.”

The problems include rutting, bumps and other “irregularities,” the city said. Malatek said the problems were primarily concentrated in the wheel paths, where vehicles are driving in the lanes.

New Braunfels hired an outside engineering firm and determined that the main cause of the failures was the type of base material used and how it was applied, city officials say.

“The original design of the project was selected for its cost savings and efficiencies, but that selection, along with how the design was applied, led to a less robust, less durable roadway for the number and weight of vehicles that use the road,” the city said in a written statement.

The base material was rock and gravel below the roadway’s surface, Malatek said. That forms the support system for the pavement, and it wasn’t strong enough to support the amount and types of traffic on the road, he said, calling it a “risky process.”

“It’s just something that, as an engineer for the city, I would not recommend to use again,” he said.

New Braunfels considered taking legal action against the contractor but determined that rebuilding the roadway would be “the most cost-effective and time sensitive way to move forward.”

The city will begin temporary repairs this month. The work is expected to take a few days with short lane closures. That work will focus on addressing “the worst spots,” Malatek said. Engineering work for a new pavement design will also begin soon, the city said, and Malatek said the goal will be to begin that work in 2024.

He said it was too early to estimate the cost of the repair work because that engineering process will need to be completed and a new contractor will be selected.

The initial paving project was part of the 2013 bond program. City Council records show that a contract was awarded to Cobb Fendley for engineering design, bid phase and construction phase services for the project in November 2018, and council approved a contract with Clark Construction of Texas for “roadway and curb work” in October 2019.