Caltrans is giving up on its effort to fix a stretch of Highway 29 in Lake County until summer when it will spend millions to pave the road.

Spokesman Phil Frisbie Jr. said that after rainstorms and then cold weather canceled two efforts to smooth out a 1,000-foot long stretch of Highway 29 near Hidden Valley with grinding, Caltrans officials dropped the plan entirely. Instead, they will wait until late spring or early summer for the paving job.

The grinding plan was Caltrans’ latest step to try to fix last summer’s chip sealing project on Highways 29 and 175 that turned out making the roads even worse. Parts of both highways were chip sealed last summer, but in a departure from its usual practice, Caltrans used half-inch rock rather than the typical three-eighths-inch rock. That change left the roads rough and led to hundreds of complaints from Lake County residents.

Now, Caltrans plans to fix the chip seal problem by paving a 12-mile stretch of Highway 29 from the Lake County line north to Hidden Valley in addition to an 8.5-mile stretch of Highway 175 from Middletown to Cobb.

The chip sealing project cost a total of $2.1 million for both highways. Frisbie has estimated the cost to repave Highway 175 at about $3.825 million and the Highway 29 stretch at about $5.4 million.

(Visited 1 times, 1 visits today)