Town of Colchester

Very few things in life age gracefully. For the most part,
aging and frequent use results in fatigue and deterioration.
This is especially true if preservation techniques are
not adopted to preserve a "like-new" condition. Preserving
something in a "like-new" condition is generally far less
expensive and provides greater longevity than trying to
restore something that has a degraded or failed. This is
the basic philosophy behind a sound pavement preservation
program.
For the past fifteen plus years, the Town of Colchester
Public Works Department has employed a pavement
preservation program
that strives to keep
good roads in good condition
while slowly
"restoring" deteriorated
roads back to "likenew"
condition. A successful
pavement
preservation program
is based on applying
the right preservation
method to the right
road at the right time.
In the long run, a properly
preserved road
maintained in excellent
to very good condition
throughout a 30-
year life will cost less
than half the cost to
reconstruct the road
after it has been in a
deteriorated state for
more than half its 30-
year the life.
Pavement preservation methods used by the Town include
hot liquid crack seal, several types of whole road surface
sealing treatments, repairing minor surface irregularities
using hot mix asphalt, removing and replacing locally distressed
areas with new granular base materials and
patching with hot mix asphalt, and application of thin
asphalt overlay. These measures range in cost from cents
per lineal foot for crack sealing, to less than $2 per square
yard for surface sealing treatments, to roughly $6 per
Colchester CONNECTION
Public Works
Pavement Preservation - If It's Already Broken, It's Too Late!
square yard for thin hot mix asphalt overlay. Full depth
reclamation, grading, and application of a new structural
pad of hot asphalt costs approximately $20 per square
yard. Complete reconstruction costs upwards of $75 to
$100 per square yard. Obviously, the cost escalates quickly
as the work becomes more extensive. In other words, if
it is already broken, it is too late to try and preserve it and
other techniques are necessary.
We are often asked why we spend money on a road that
looks like it is great shape and there's another road that is
in terrible shape and we are not doing anything to it. The
reason is two-fold.
First, for the reasons
explained above, we
want to keep our good
roads in good condition
so they cost less to
maintain. The second
reason is the type of
work needed. While
deterioration occurs
relatively slowly when
a road is new, the
preservation method
and the magnitude of
the work needed to
keep it new may
change from one year
to the next.
Therefore, it is important
to perform the
preservation method at
the right time to keep
the cost down.
However, once a road has deteriorated to the point where
the only option to restore it is reclamation or reconstruction,
the restoration method and cost won't change dramatically
from year to year. Those roads are addressed as
quickly as budgets allow but the first priority is to keep the
good roads good.
If we are able to properly preserve our roads in good condition,
we will clearly save money and have roads more
comfortable to travel on.
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Thursday, August 19, 2010
Colchester CONNECTION
www.colchesterct.gov