Construction workers fill cracks in the pavement in the northbound lanes of Kasold Drive between 15th and 22nd streets Thursday afternoon. Although several cracks developed on the new road, the city says Kasold will still open in late July and will be in good condition.

As a concrete truck rumbles in for a pour, Paulino Ortiz, foreground, drills a hole in the roadway to make way for rebar. Cracks in the roadway along Kasold Drive have forced the construction crews to tear out parts of the newly poured roadway. Construction crews worked on the project on Thursday.

Those are the breaks.

Concrete crews on Wednesday and Thursday were busy tearing out and replacing parts of the recently constructed $6 million Kasold Drive project because several cracks had developed on the new road – which runs from about Clinton Parkway to Bob Billings Drive.

But Chuck Soules, the city’s director of public works, said none of the work is costing the city a dime, and he’s confident that the road is going to be a fine one for the city for years to come.

“It is not like the street isn’t structurally sound,” Soules said. “It is a good street, but we don’t want a brand-new street with cracks in it. The contractors want it to be a great job too, and they’ve been really good to work with.”

Despite the extra work, the road is still scheduled to open in late July – more than two months ahead of schedule.

The street project – the most expensive the city has undertaken on its own – is one of the first in Lawrence that is using a concrete driving surface instead of an asphalt top. With concrete, cracks will occur. But crews try to control the cracks by making cuts across the road’s surface. Theoretically, cracks that do develop should be within the cut, where they can be controlled.

But Soules said he believes 30 to 40 of the more than 2,000 cuts that were made along the road were not cut deep enough. That’s allowed cracks to develop on other portions of the street.

“They were really small cracks that drivers wouldn’t even see, but over the next several years they would become larger cracks that could let water get under the road,” Soules said.

Permanent Paving, an Overland Park-based company, did the concrete work. Steve Bird, the company’s president, said he’s not sure the problem came from cuts being made too shallow, but it also is not an issue he wants to quibble over.

“We’re taking the high road here,” Bird said. “I’m not sure there is really any rhyme or reason why it happened. There are always issues on a job. The big thing is how you deal with them, and our philosophy is to jump in and take care of them.”

The cracks only occurred on the east lanes of the project. Soules said the cracks were discovered before the west lanes were poured. He said concrete crews were alerted to take extra precautions to prevent cracks from forming.

Soules – who has had a city inspection crew on the site every day of the project – said no cracks have developed in the west lanes.