Photos by Samantha Bengtson
Gonzales City Council, city staff, TAMC members and business owners help cut the ribbon celebrating the reopening of Alta Street. Below, southbound Alta Street pavement project is nearing complete, with just striping to occur soon for the lanes.
GONZALES — After months of road construction, Alta Street has been reopened with stronger pavement to handle the heavy truck use and residents who live and work in Gonzales.
“It was really a lot of work from a lot of people,” said Mayor Maria Orozco. “You can finally see the work and repair. “
Alta Street is the key entry to the Agricultural Industrial Business Park, which houses several businesses that bring jobs for local residents.
According to Orozco, over the past five years the park has created 12,000 jobs for the community and region, and more jobs are on the horizon with the Del Monte-Mann Packing building.
The Alta Street Repavement Project was unique for Monterey County because it used innovative technology to complete the pavement.
“We started on this project two years ago knowing the deteriorated state and the heavy truck use,” said City Engineer Patrick Dobbins. “We kept going around on what could be a sustainable and economical process. We landed on full depth reclamation.”
Old Highway 101 provided a challenge for the repavement project and worked with specialty contractors on the approach. Every week, the city updated residents and business owners through an Alta Street Update page on the city website.
Debbie Hale of the Transportation Agency of Monterey County (TAMC) commended the City of Gonzales on being the first agency in Monterey County that asked for Measure X funds ahead of the start of the road work project.
“You did it in record time,” Hale said. “This multi-model project would not have happened if the city hadn’t been ready to go with their project and gone out on a limb to ask TAMC (for a loan).”
The City of Gonzales worked with TAMC, Granite Construction, Harris and Associates, local businesses and the community to complete the project and ease the pain of major road work on a main traffic street.
The updated Alta Street has fewer stop signs and fewer parking spots. The railroad tracks were also paved over meaning fewer stops for buses and hazardous waste material trucks.
