Crack sealing, striping of more than 10 Yelm roads set for this year

Yelm Public Works Director Cody Colt provided the city with an update on various road projects set to occur throughout 2025, including crack sealing and striping of more than 10 different local roads and repairs to sidewalks.

With Dean Norton at the helm, Colt said the public works team has come up with a list of road projects to tackle this year. The roads include: Tahoma Boulevard Southeast, Terra View Street Southeast, Longmire Street Southeast, Longmire Street Southwest, Longmire Street Northwest, Coates Ave Northwest, Edward Street Northwest, Crystal Springs Road Northwest, First Street North, Stevens Avenue Northeast, West Road Northeast, 103rd Avenue Northeast, 103rd Avenue Southeast, Cullens Road Southeast and Creek Street Southeast.

Colt noted that black tar will be placed over cracks in the road to seal damage in order to prevent potholes from forming and to extend the life of the road for four to eight years. He anticipates the projects happening over the next four to six months. He said they’ll conclude at the end of October when it begins to get “wet and rainy.”

“Shortly after crack sealing, they will go and stripe these roads. We work with Thurston County, and they’ll come out and restripe the roads,” Colt said. “There will be a lot of activity this summer.”

Additionally, Colt said Precision Concrete will be used to grind down the edges of local sidewalks. He said the business has already grinded three sections of sidewalk throughout the city, and just one section remains to be done.

“They’ll go back through and reassess those. We’ll switch out panels if we have to. Some of the panels can’t be grinded. Some get too lopsided and we can’t,” Colt said. “If you see a problem with a sidewalk specifically, report it, because we’ll get out there and do it quicker. The grinding will come through twice during the summer and it will hit the last two sections and start all over again.”

Yelm City Councilor Tracey Wood stated several years ago there was a technology developed to pick up the concrete panels to remove them from the ground. Once they were removed from the ground, Wood said the area it was displaced from would be recompacted before replacing the panel to its original home. He said this technology would save money without having to grind. He asked Colt if that technology had advanced at all.

The public works director said the technology exists, but it hasn’t been perfected yet.

“What you’re mentioning, we’ve attempted to do,” Colt said. “A company said they pull panels, and the two panels they pulled fell apart when they pulled them. It broke both the edges, and we had to re-pour it. One sidewalk panel isn’t difficult, and our team can do that. Our team can pull a single sidewalk panel. There’s probably three or four panels that we’ve done in the last several months in Yelm.”

Councilor Brian Hess asked Colt if the sidewalks in Yelm near state Route 510 and state Route 507 are the Washington state Department of Transportation’s (WSDOT) responsibility. Colt told Hess that WSDOT operates the space within the curbs on each side of the road.

“We’ll work with (WSDOT),” Colt said. “Oftentimes, we’ll sweep, and we’ll even do basic maintenance if they can’t get the right of way because of the timeframe. They are responsible for pothole filling and curb to curb.”

Mayor Joe DePinto said that there have been issues over the last several years with flooding in local WSDOT-maintained streets, and Colt said on state Route 510, specifically near Car Stars and the Timberland Bank, the flooding problems have been resolved.

“One side, we did a drain through there and it goes back to the swell behind it, which was great. The other side, we installed a sidewalk drain. If you haven’t been there, we just laid it last week. There’s a new sidewalk drain on the other side of 510, so you should have zero flooding over by Timberland Bank this winter.”

He added that the city is currently working on a solution to address flooding on Clark Road.