Sammy Hagar Funding Initiative

(from the June/July 2010 Editor's Note of AsphaltPro Magazine)
I ask you to bear with me for just a moment while I plagiarize Sammy Hagar.

Go on & write me up for 125
Post my face, wanted dead or alive
Take my license & all that jive
I can’t drive 55!

(Many thanks go out to Steve Jackson of NB West Contracting, Missouri, for sending this shot of himself with Sammy at a show July 1, 2010! Rock on!)

There’s a reason I’m channeling ’80s hair band rock today. I’ve got an idea. You see, I read an article online about a month or so ago claiming county police officers were stepping up their diligence in detaining and ticketing speeding motorists in an effort to make up languishing budgets in our current economic distress. Of course the obligatory quote from a sheriff suggested that officers are always diligent in keeping motorways safe, thus there’s no increase in ticketing these days. (Statistics showed otherwise, but that’s not the point of this editorial piece.) The point of this editorial piece is to suggest we make good use of increased diligence in all state highway patrols.

I would like to suggest all speeding fines be increased dramatically.

I would further like to suggest that a significant percentage of all speeding fines assessed by state highway patrol officers be allocated specifically to highway funding.

I would further like to suggest that the imagined “10-mph grace” allowed for motorists to travel in excess of posted limits be decreased. This will not only enhance motorists’ safety on our nation’s roadways, it will add funding to much-needed highway building and maintenance coffers in every state.

Now, I have to admit that it pains me to write this editorial. I’m guilty of driving too fast most of the time. The only time I truly slow down is when passing a work zone because I’m aware of the danger to workers there. You can imagine the irritation I cause for following drivers when I approach a work zone and start slowing in accordance to the law.

I-75 runs up and down the state of Florida with a posted speed limit of 70 mph. Drivers run up and down I-75 at a clip of 80 mph on a good day. We hit 90 when we can get away with it. Surely members of the state highway patrol are as aware of this as the rest of the driving public. Why aren’t they out there slowing us to something safer? Why aren’t the citizens of Florida sharing the profits in the form of safer roads? Yes, a percentage goes into the funding coffers now. Apparently, it’s not enough.

The FAA funding bill faces its headaches that spell another delay this July 3. The Lieberman-Kerry bill dooms potential user fee increases later this year (see the post below for more on that). Current measures fall short of necessary funding for infrastructure maintenance. What’s the nation to do to keep commerce lively and safety in check?

It’s time to hike up the consequences for speeding and hike up the benefits for the highway system. The next time a Lamborghini races a Corvette—and, yes, that happens down here in Collier County—toward Miami, a string of Florida’s finest should be waiting in ambush to hand them citations that will make my Charger’s smug—and easy—drop to 70 mph feel smoother. (Or maybe I just have to live with Dodge’s funky transmission problem that the dealer refused to fix while the car was under the original warranty…)

As Mr. Hagar says, it’s difficult to drive those slower speeds, and therein lies the genius of this funding plan. Speeders can’t keep their feet off the accelerators. One of those crazy TV channels even has a show about it. We’ll be getting funding from here until the end of time, no matter what kind of car the motorist drives or what kind of fuel he/she puts in it. Now who wants to take the idea to his senator? You know Ray LaHood will sign off on it if you add in a no-cell-phone-use-while-driving clause.

Stay Safe,
Sandy Lender, Editor
Tags: AsphaltPro Magazine, Asphalt Pro Magazine, highway funding

Asphalt Wins in the Stormwater Management Arena

(from the June/July Editor's Note in AsphaltPro Magazine)

This is an opinion piece. So here’s my opinion. If you’re going to build a pavement that allows proper stormwater management, the right material to use is hot mix asphalt (HMA) or warm mix asphalt (WMA). I’m basing this opinion on my subjective bias and some pertinent facts, the latter of which I’ll outline now.

First, the idea of using porous asphalt pavements precludes using pervious concrete structures. There’s sound reasoning behind this. I’m not telling you anything new when I remind you that one of the elements in the design of a typical concrete pavement is a steel structure or grid. But consider this: Rebar doesn’t play nicely with water, so allowing stormwater to filter through a concrete pavement, trickling playfully across rusting infrastructure is unwise. Thus the concrete industry left this internal structure out of its pervious concrete design.

As it turns out, some pervious concrete sections placed in Denver metropolitan parking lots looked “unstructured” enough to members of the Urban Drainage and Flood Control District (UDFCD) back in 2008 that they asked Thompson Materials Engineers, Inc., to check out a few of the failing pervious concrete sections. In June 2008, engineers cut samples from four areas. One of the areas was fine, exhibiting no signs of distress. This area, Site A, was used as the control. The other three areas they chose exhibited signs of distress from “minimal” to “significant.”

You can read the entire findings for yourself in the technical paper of Project CT14,571-356 titled Pervious Concrete Evaluation Materials Investigation Denver, Colorado in the downloads section of http://www.udfcd.org/, (or try http://tinyurl.com/PerviousPDF) but one of the sections that stood out to me alluded to concrete’s inability to serve as a viable option in stormwater management.

"Our data indicates elevated chloride concentrations in the bottom portion of the samples for two of the sites. The other two sites exhibit the elevated chloride concentrations near the surface of the sample. Deicing salts (e.g., chlorides) are deleterious to concrete. They are absorbed into the concrete as it dries, and the absorbed salt strongly attracts water during subsequent wet weather events. If the ambient temperature is cold enough, and the sample does not have sufficient drainage capabilities, the water freezes in spite of the deicer, and will contribute to accelerated deterioration from freeze-thaw conditions."

Luckily, the asphalt industry has an answer for agencies and owners who want to control stormwater in an environmentally responsible manner. It’s called porous asphalt and these structures have been constructed, tested and proved since the late 1970s, according to the National Asphalt Pavement Association (NAPA). Researchers have shown that by designing and constructing a porous asphalt pavement properly, you have a pavement that doesn’t fail. Period.

Another plus researchers have found for these pavements is a reduction in winter maintenance costs. Snow and ice naturally melt more quickly on a porous pavement. If you find it necessary to apply deicing compounds such as salt or liquid deicer, you can reduce quantities from past maintenance practices and you don’t have the fear of negative reactions found with concrete pavements. Researchers warn agencies and public works departments not to use sand or ash on the surface because clogging of the open graded friction course can occur, thus negating the infiltration ability of the structure. So there’s another winter maintenance cost savings porous asphalt offers.

Of course there are oodles more reasons to select a porous asphalt pavement for stormwater management, and NAPA offers publications that outline these. The association also offers publications that assist engineers in designing proper porous asphalt pavement structures. You can find these publications at http://www.hotmix.org/.

Now, what kind of publication would AsphaltPro be if we left you with just this idea? For this special Best Paving Practices issue, you can turn to page 24 to read a professional engineer’s article on how to construct a porous asphalt pavement—from the subbase up.

Stay Safe,
Sandy Lender, Editor (sandy at theasphaltpro dot com)

Tags: AsphaltPro Magazine, Asphalt Pro Magazine, porous asphalt, pervious concrete, construct porous asphalt pavement, stormwater management