The ebb and flow of traffic has been disturbed a bit in Riverbank lately, as road crews have been blocking off streets, driveways and alleys to slurry seal major and minor byways around town.

The state-funded projects are grinding down, slurry coating, then re-painting all the lines on many streets around town. Funding comes from SB1, and increase in gasoline taxes passed as the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017.

In recent weeks, work was done in the eastern area of town, and this past Friday, crews were working on streets in downtown Riverbank.

This week, the slurry seal project was to continue in other parts of the community, including a section of Crawford Road that runs east to west through the middle of Crossroads in western Riverbank.

The work requires closure of the affected roads while the slurry work is prepared and then done, as it dries and solidifies. A little later, the same streets will have to be closed for a time while the center lines, stop lines and crosswalks, as well as diagonal parking lane lines are repainted on them.

Closure of the main streets in downtown made business deliveries difficult for a time, especially for the downtown stores, like Garcia's Market and the Riverbank Food Center.

A large red truck applies the liquid slurry material in long swaths down the street, but at corners, a hand crew smooths the material on the curved curbs. In the long stretches, they also see that the material reaches the edges of the concrete curbs and gutters.

Additional members of the crew include a truck delivering, then later taking up, barricades and safety cones to mark the work areas, while another, a sweeper truck, cleans leaves and other debris off of the road surface to be treated.