Johnson County is directly south of Fort Worth: Burleson on the county line, Cleburne at the center, and a spread of smaller towns and acreage between the Brazos and the Blackland Prairie. This page covers the towns, the two very different soils the county is split between, and what Burleson and Cleburne ask for before anyone works in their right-of-way.
Burleson, the largest city, and Cleburne, the county seat, along with Joshua, Keene, Alvarado, Godley, Venus, Grandview and Rio Vista, and the parts of Fort Worth and Crowley that cross the county line. Burleson and Joshua are close in; Cleburne and the southern towns are toward the outer edge of our area, so send the address and you will get a straight answer.
Johnson County is split down the middle. The western half is Grand Prairie, where the typical soil is alkaline loam over limestone. The east is Blackland Prairie, with deep, clayey, alkaline soils, and a band of post oak savannah belonging to the Eastern Cross Timbers runs through as well. The Brazos River forms the south western border, the Nolan River runs north to south through the middle of the county to meet it, and Lake Pat Cleburne sits just south of Cleburne.
For asphalt the east side is the harder ground. Deep blackland clay swells a great deal when it is wet and shrinks and cracks when it dries, so a driveway on it moves every year, and the long edge cracks and heaves that go with that are the most common thing we would be asked to deal with. On the limestone side of the county the soil is thinner and the base firmer, and the problems are more often drainage: water running off across a drive and cutting away its edges, or a culvert under an acreage drive that has silted up.
Cleburne grew on the railroad. It was linked by rail to Dallas in 1881, the same year the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe line was completed through the county, and the Santa Fe repair shops that opened in Cleburne in 1898 were for years a core part of the local economy. The older streets around the courthouse square carry older, narrower drives and a lot of mature trees.
Burleson is the commuter city. Its population roughly tripled in the 1950s, and the county as a whole went from about 45,800 people in 1970 to about 97,200 in 1990, with far more growth since as Fort Worth spread south along I-35W and US 67. That leaves plenty of subdivision drives from every decade, and plenty of newer ones that are too young to seal. Past the towns, homes on acreage tend to have long asphalt drives crossing a bar ditch at the road, which is where most of their problems start.
Sealing and crack filling on your own drive are not right-of-way work. Anything that touches the approach, the ditch crossing or the road is done under the right permit, and the fee is written on the quote.
Not for good, on blackland clay. It can be filled with flexible hot filler and sealed so rain stays out of the soil, which slows it down a great deal. Expect to refill after a hard drought.
If the asphalt is sound, yes, and length is where the per square foot price works in your favor. Send the address and it is measured from aerial imagery first.
That crossing takes every turning wheel and all the water in the ditch. It usually needs the culvert and the base looked at, not just a patch on top.
Burleson's permit covers work that disturbs or obstructs a city road, right-of-way or easement. A seal coat and crack fill on your own drive stays off all three.
Next door: Tarrant County to the north and Parker County to the north west.
