New street treatment unveiled to fix LA roads

NORTHRIDGE, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Driving on Los Angeles streets can be a rough ride. On Tuesday, officials unveiled a new street treatment designed to fix some of the city's worst roads at a fraction of the cost.

The city is testing the treatment out on one street in Northridge.

"Full reconstruction of a street like this one costs between $600,000 to $1 million per mile," said Nazario Sauceda from Los Angeles' Bureau of Street Service.

Mix 1781 -- named after the year the city of L.A. was founded -- is a street surface treatment developed by a private company and the city of L.A. to be used mainly on lightly traveled residential streets that are in need of repair. It costs only thousands of dollars instead of hundreds of thousands.

"It's a sealed bonding that is not permeable as much as all the other products we've been using where rain and water gets trapped underneath the surface and starts lifting up and cracking the street," said Councilman Mitchell Englander.

The rubberized sealant is slightly more expensive than slurry but is expected to last longer -- up to 10 years.

The city is just testing out Mix 1781. It's a four-month pilot program observing how 1781 does on this residential street in Northridge.

"What we want to do is prove that the product will perform, and then at that time, add it to our tool box," Sauceda said.

The city hopes to use 1781 to help repair all failing residential streets and then test it out on main streets with more traffic.