County advertises bids for Rainbow Canyon Road resurfacing

Joe Naiman

for the Valley News

The County of Riverside approved the advertisement for bid of the Rainbow Canyon Road resurfacing project.

The Riverside County Board of Supervisors voted 5-0 March 22 to advertise the project for bid and to approve the plans and specifications for the project which will resurface approximately 1 mile of the road between Frontage Road and the Temecula city limits. Bids are due by 2 p.m. April 13, and the supervisors also found the resurfacing to be categorically exempt from California Environmental Quality Act review.

The County of Riverside’s general plan classifies Rainbow Canyon Road as a Secondary Highway. The two-lane road is currently 26 feet wide. The pavement has deteriorated, and the resurfacing will involve two different types of treatment. Grinding down a portion of the pavement and overlaying the pavement with hot mix asphalt will be performed on approximately 0.4 miles of the street. The other 0.6-mile segment will be treated by cleaning, crack sealing, and tack coat before overlaying the existing asphalt with new hot asphalt mix. The improvements will also include guardrail replacement, asphalt concrete dike pavement, reconstruction of asphalt concrete driveways, placement of safety edge and shoulder backing which will protect the outside edge of the pavement, traffic striping and pavement markings.

The contract is structured with a base bid and two alternative bids. The base bid will resurface Rainbow Canyon Road and provide the other associated improvements while the two alternative bids involve manhole adjustments. One of those alternative bids addresses Lumen Technologies manhole adjustments while the other is for AT&T manhole adjustments. If Lumen and AT&T approve the bids the utilities will reimburse the county for the cost of that work.

The Road Repair and Accountability Act passed by the state Legislature in 2017 raised the gas tax by 12 cents a gallon and raised annual vehicle registration fees from $25 to $175 based on vehicle value, and that revenue will be used for the base bid cost while the utilities will fund the alternative bids. The estimated cost including the alternative bids is $933,234.

The work is scheduled to begin in summer 2022 and will be phased so that the road can remain open as much as possible during construction. Completion is expected approximately two months after the start of work.