Paving in Martinez

A suburb aging on schedule

Martinez built out a generation before Evans did, in the wave that filled the corridors off Bobby Jones and Old Petersburg Road. Those houses got asphalt driveways when they were new, and asphalt has a service life. Fifty-year-old pavement that's never been resurfaced isn't a scandal — it's a driveway that already outlived its design and is telling you so. Around here we read the same three messages over and over: spider-web crack networks across the middle, alligatored squares where cars have parked in the same spot for decades, and edges going ragged where the lawn has slowly eaten the shoulder.

The Martinez decision, with real numbers

Almost every estimate we run in Martinez comes down to one fork, and it's a base question, not an age question:

• Base still sound → overlay. If the driveway sits flat, drains, and the cracking is scattered rather than interconnected, a new lift of hot mix over the old mat runs $3–$7 per square foot — for most Martinez driveways a $3,000–$6,000 project that resets the clock by decades. The old asphalt keeps working as base. This is the value play, and it's honest here more often than not because those original builds got real stone under them.
• Base failed → rebuild. Where large areas flex underfoot or the alligator pattern covers whole sections, overlaying is renting time — the pattern reflects through in a couple of winters. Tear-out and rebuild runs $8–$14 per square foot, and we'd rather lose the small job today than have you pay for the surface twice. The full decision framework is on the driveway page.
• Not ready for either → stabilize. Hot crack filling and a patch on the worst square, then a sealcoat, buys a tired-but-solid driveway several presentable years for a few hundred dollars. We'll tell you when this is the smart bridge and when it's throwing money at a decided outcome.

Whole streets hit the mark together

Because these subdivisions were paved house after house in the same construction seasons, they age in unison — when one driveway on a Martinez street is ready, four more usually are. Neighbors who coordinate estimates share one mobilization and everyone's number improves. It's the same clustering logic we run in Evans, applied to resurfacing instead of new builds.