A quirky street in San Jose gets an innovative makeover

"San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, Councilmember Michael Mulcahy and several city transportation workers gathered recently to cut the ribbon on Katherine Court, a 500-foot stretch of road in the city's Rose Garden neighborhood next to Interstate 880. Admittedly, a ribbon-cutting for a small residential street is a little weird, and Katherine Court isn't new - it's been on the maps for more than a century. But it's been given new life thanks to an innovative, first-of-its kind project. You see, Katherine Court is part of the 0.2% of San Jose's 2,500 miles of streets not paved with asphalt. It was paved entirely with concrete, and the last time that happened may have been in late 1929 or 1930, according to a Mercury Herald article I found."

"Asphalt streets need to be resurfaced every 10 to 20 years, a transportation official told me, but concrete can last decades longer. In the case of Katherine Court, though, it was heavily cracked - think of your garage floor - and had been patched a few times. Bob Sippel, president of the Rose Garden Neighborhood Association, said when workers would come out to repair the street, they'd tell him it was only a temporary fix."

""So we did what San Jose does best," Mahan said. "We innovated." A team from the city's department of transportation, led by project manager Isaiah Watts, replaced the broken concrete with interlocking permeable concrete pavers that will allow storm water to seep underground beneath them."

San Jose officials celebrated the rehabilitation of Katherine Court, a 500-foot residential street in the Rose Garden next to Interstate 880. The street, last paved in 1929 or 1930, was one of the city's few concrete roadways and had become heavily cracked and patched. Sidewalks sat nearly level with the roadway and the street lacked gutters or storm drains, causing severe flooding during heavy rains. City transportation crews removed the damaged concrete and installed interlocking permeable concrete pavers that allow stormwater to infiltrate beneath the surface, providing longer-lasting pavement and improved stormwater management for the neighborhood.

Read at The Mercury News