PHOENIX — The City of Phoenix Street Transportation Department apologized to neighbors of Fairview Place on Wednesday night after months of issues related to failed 'cool pavement' coating applied on their streets.
Crews have finished cleaning up the affected streets between 15th and 17th avenues and from McDowell Road to Encanto Boulevard.
Now, residents in the neighborhood will have two options: to try the cool pavement coating again or stick with the traditional dark asphalt.
Leslie Wickens tells ABC15 the past few months have been a mess.
"The whole pavement was completely flooded and you could see just puddles of the asphalt, like the white, white stuff. It was clearly coming up from the rain, like, it did not stick. It was horrible; it was done horribly," says Wickens, a resident at Fairview Place.
The Phoenix Streets Department held a meeting with the Fairview Place Neighborhood Association and residents to discuss the options.
"If we could do it over again, in hindsight you know, we would have made different decisions," says Ryan Stevens, City of Phoenix Street Transportation Department.
The city says they initially applied 'cool pavement' coating with a new product they were trying out. Then tried to fix the issues by having a contractor retreat those streets with their original, trusted product.
The mixture of both, along with rain in December, caused the coating to peel off.
"If you do walk around the neighborhood, you'll see tire prints going into peoples' driveways, or footprints, there's bike tire marks. So, it did leave an impact that way," says Bob Hickman, another resident.
Crews have removed both products from the streets using power-washing equipment.
The city also reminded neighbors why they wanted cool pavement coating to begin with.
"We're seeing 10- to 12-degree differences in the surface temperature of the pavement which is great because it helps us with the urban heat-island impact," says Kini Knudson, director of the City of Phoenix Street Transportation Department.
The city plans to leave the decision up to residents to decide what kind of pavement they will want.
"We do walk our dogs daily, a couple of times, so it would be nice if the afternoons weren't blistering hot," said Hickman.
Others are not so willing to give things another shot.
"I think at this point, we want the regular asphalt. This is, I mean, now we're going on months and months of this and it just looks horrible," said Wickens.
A survey was passed out to neighbors at Wednesday's meeting and can also be found online. The city would like neighbors to share their feedback by March 3.
