Asphalt Paving in Palmdale, CA

Asphalt paving in Palmdale serves a city that barely existed as a suburb in 1980. The census counted about 12,277 residents that year, 68,842 in 1990, 116,670 in 2000 and 169,450 in 2020. Most of the city's roughly 49,686 homes were built in two big waves, the late 1980s and the 2000s, which means thousands of driveways and HOA streets are now 20 to 35 years old. That is right in the range where cost guides say asphalt reaches the end of its life if it was never sealed or repaired.

What we see across Palmdale

• Late-1980s and 1990s tracts on the west and south sides with original driveways that have gone gray and cracked into blocks
• Newer neighborhoods in Anaverde and Rancho Vista with HOA rules on driveway materials and colors
• East side properties with long gravel or dirt drives on larger lots
• Strip centers and office parks along Palmdale Boulevard and Rancho Vista Boulevard with worn lots and faded striping
• Industrial yards near Plant 42 and the airport that need heavy-duty sections

Built on a grid of avenues

Palmdale's streets follow the Antelope Valley grid. East-west avenues are lettered one per mile, starting with Avenue A at the Kern County line, and Palmdale Boulevard is Avenue Q-8. North-south streets are numbered east or west of Division Street. When you call, the nearest avenue and street is often all we need to know which part of town you are in and what the ground there tends to be like.

Weather that shapes the job

Palmdale is classed as a cold desert climate. The airport station averages about 35 afternoons a year at 100 degrees or more and about 52 mornings at or below freezing, with only about 5.9 inches of rain a year. We pave and seal in the cooler hours of summer days, wait for workable ground temperatures in winter, and shape every surface to drain, because the rain that does come often comes all at once.

Faults and settling

The San Andreas Fault runs along the south side of the valley and crosses the Antelope Valley Freeway just north of the Avenue S off-ramp. You do not need to worry about it for a driveway, but local ground does move: in the wider valley, decades of groundwater pumping have caused land subsidence in places. Asphalt flexes better than concrete when the ground shifts a little, and a well-compacted base keeps that movement from turning into cracks.

Plant 42 and the commercial side

Palmdale calls itself the Aerospace Capital of America, and Air Force Plant 42 hosts operations for Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Northrop Grumman alone employs about 7,000 people here. The suppliers, offices and shops that serve that workforce have parking lots and yards that carry heavy daily traffic. For those properties we focus on full-depth repairs at entrances and truck routes, overlays where the base is sound, and restriping with the accessible stall count checked against the lot's size.

The street side

Palmdale's municipal code adopts the Los Angeles County highway permit ordinance as the city's own, administered by the city's Director of Public Works. If your project changes the driveway approach, curb or sidewalk, we check with the city on the current permit process before scheduling that part of the work. Call (661) 466-4552 or

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