In This Issue...

Streets and Roadways

We're Here for You
Take Control
Steady Now: Concrete Roundabouts Fight Congestion, Impart Safety
Timing, Strategy Keep Pavements in Top Condition
How Green are Your Pavements?
Concrete Bus Pads Take A Beating and Come Back for More
Resources Feature Concrete Overlays Best Practices
Transportation News

Let's be honest: Like most people today, pavement selection may not be the number one topic on your ever-expanding list of things that require your attention.

Whether you're a public works director, MPO official, city planner, municipal or county engineer, or consultant, we realize that pavements may not be at the top of your list right now. But if you're involved in a city, township, or county that's experiencing growth, we want you to know that we're here when you need us.

Growth presents its share of both opportunities and challenges. One person who knows that first-hand is Steve Cope, Transportation & Traffic Services Operations Manager for the City of Naperville, Illinois, which has rapidly expanded to what is now the fourth largest city in Illinois, according to the NAPERVILLE SUN newspaper.

According to Cope, one of the greatest challenges is the growth in population. In his time with the city, the population has boomed from less than 40,000 to nearly 140,000 residents.

"Traffic matters are very emotional and traffic professionals are often the target of residents' backlash," he says. "Surrounding communities are growing rapidly," he said. "It is quite difficult to keep up with traffic-related demands."

So, while the challenges may not be new, they certainly become more complex as the population increases.

Urban Concentration
By 2008, more than half the world's population of 3.3 billion people will be concentrated in urban settings for the first time in history, according to a United Nations Population Fund report.

In the United States alone, the population has seen the largest increase in the nation’s history between 1990 and 2000— a 32.7 million person increase, according to Census 2000.

So, what does all this mean to those of you responsible for the infrastructure requirements in cities and towns?

It means that we've got solutions when you need them.

Examples:

• Design software that takes the guesswork out of street and road design.

• Economic modeling that factors life-cycle cost analysis into your planningprocess.

• Environmentally-sound products to help you combat urban noise address urban heat-island effects, and meet sustainable construction requirements.

• Decorative concrete solutions to beautify cityscapes, improve safety, and meet residents' demands for aesthetics.

No-nonsense answers to safety concerns, including the facts about roundabouts and other traffic calming devices; wet-weather performance; stopping distances; and other information designed to impart safety and security on your streets and roadways.

Yes, we know that pavements may not top your list of priorities, but when the need arises, simply call 847-966-2272 (ACPA) or e-mail acpa@pavement.com. If you're interested in knowing more about how we respond to motorists demands, please visit our general website at www.pavements4life.com. We promise we'll be here for you when you need us.

How can we help your city, town, or county? Click here to let us hear your questions or comments about the infrastructure challenges you're facing.

Concrete pavements would be nice, but they're too expensive, take too long, and are too difficult to repair ... right?

Wrong! A growing number of agencies and consultants are finding that today's concrete pavements are the best value coming and going.

Initial Costs
The myth of higher first costs is being shattered with every incremental increase in oil prices.

Seeing relief at the gas pump? It won't matter, say some experts. In a recent poll by ACPA, officials from both the public sector and the industry were asked, "Do you believe the assertion that oil companies will continue to extract more value from other premium products, thereby making asphalt oil less plentiful?"

Their answers? One hundred percent answered with a resounding "yes." So, the key point is asphalt pricing, which has increased 12 fold in the past 50 years (vs. a 6x increase for concrete), according to ACPA's "Trusty Toll Roads" literature, which is available free of charge from the Association's website.

Long-Term Performance
Concrete pavements are well known for their maintenance-free performance and for greater durability and longevity compared to asphalt pavements. These features and benefits are well documented, but what's less well known are these fast facts:

Concrete pavements have historically provided the best value over time because they require virtually no maintenance and fewer repairs than asphalt. Concrete pavement almost invariably will outperfom asphalt.

To take the guesswork out of pavement design, ACPA’s StreetPave software (which is available as both a full-scale computer program, as well as a basic online version), gives designers and others with a working knowledge of pavement requirements the opportunity to evaluate long-term pavement performance.

The key to this is life-cycle cost analysis modeling, which compares the true costs of asphalt and concrete pavement, including maintenance and repair costs.

To learn more about life-cycle cost analysis, as well as more about ACPA's highly-acclaimed StreetPave software:

• Click here to download a free copy of "Lasting Impressions," to learn more about the value of concrete pavements; and
• Visit the ACPA website here to order StreetPave version 1.2 design software for streets and roadways. Alternatively, call 1-800-868-6733 or fax orders to 847-966-9666. ACPA members, be sure to visit the “members only” area of the website for discounted rates.At $25 for ACPA members ($100 for non-members), it is a great value.

Questions about how we can help your city, town, or county with its infrastructure planning and construction? Contact Scott Haislip at 219-922-8104.

In recent studies conducted by the National League of Cities, one of the main concerns facing local governments was growing congestion. Many of these problems were associated with signalized interchanges.

Enter concrete pavement roundabouts. In congested areas, they have been proven to not only reduce congestion but also provide enhanced safety. And, concrete has the durability to take the constant vehicle-turning movements.

Formally known as traffic-calming devices, concrete roundabouts enable the

Traffic calming is one area that all city officials agree needs to be addressed, especially in areas that must accommodate heavy vehicle traffic, as well as pedestrians and bicycles.

features can be added in a range of colors using decorative concrete techniques.

Another benefit of concrete in roundabout applications is that it resists shoving and rutting, which is a common occurrence on asphalt pavements. In particular, shoving typically occurs at intersections and in other areas, particularly where trucks, buses, or heavy traffic causes the asphalt to shove over, triggering a number of problems, including severe vehicle damage.

ACPA Offers Pavement Thickness Design Tips

The two primary design aspects for roundabouts are pavement thickness and jointing. For roundabouts and traditional intersection pavements, typical concrete thicknesses can range from 5 to 10 inches (125 to 250 mm).

The exact required thickness will depend on expected traffic, local conditions, past history, and other factors. Additionally, designing and laying out the single and multiple lane roundabouts using rideable raised medians and islands will allow large trucks to easily navigate the interchange.

ACPA is nearing completion on a new publication with updated construction and design practices for concrete pavement roundabouts. For more information, contact Scott Haislip at 219-922-8104.

The key to any preservation strategy is timing. Planning a CPR project needs to begin at approximately the two-thirds to three-quarters of the pavements design life. This ensures that both maintenance funding and project plans and specifications are prepared before extensive deterioration has occurred, when the project may warrant a concrete overlay or full reconstruction.

Pavement Evaluation

Evaluating the current pavement condition and anticipating the additional pavement fatigue is the first step in developing a successful, integrated pavement management strategy.

Be sure to check out: The Concrete Pavement Restoration Guide (TB020P) and Concrete Pavement Field Reference: Preservation and Repair (EB239P)

To learn more about resources available on this topic, visit the ACPA website at www.pavement.com. Alternatively, call 1-800-868-6733 or fax orders to 847-966-9666.  ACPA members, be sure to visit the “members only” area of the website for discounted rates.  

Need more information about CPR strategies for streets and roadways? Contact Scott Haislip at 219-922-8104.

So just how green is concrete pavement? Consider these facts:

Because old concrete can be recycled, the cycle of environmental performance can continue almost indefinitely, saving agencies the expense of using and transporting pavement materials.

Unlike asphalt pavements that rely on costly non-renewable oil supplies, concrete pavements are made from three abundant, readily available ingredients: water; rocks (stone, sand, and gravel); and cement (made from plentiful natural minerals).

The concrete and cement industries also use materials from other industrial processes, thereby diverting those materials away from landfills. Examples include slag (from steel manufacturing) and fly ash (from coal-fired plants), both of which can be used to enhance the performance of concrete.

Also, the process of making cement uses recycled materials. Scrap tires are used as fuel for the cement-making process. A single cement kiln can use 1 million scrap tires per year, thereby conserving fossil fuels and reducing waste.

Pervious Concrete

Concrete pavements also hold great promise in terms of stormwater management. For example, pervious concrete pavement is playing a key role in reducing the strain on municipal storwater treatment.

Pervious concrete is made from a thick paste, using coarse aggregates, cement, water, and other materials that allow the pavement to reduce storm runoff and minimize the amount of pollutants typically contained in stormwater.

This saves energy and offers real safety benefits, too.

Concrete also reduces the heat-island effect, a phenomenon associated with dark pavement and roof surfaces which are known to contribute to signficant temperature increases in urban areas.

The urban heat-island effect can contribute significantly to both energy consumption for air conditioning and to smog formation.

Reduced Energy Consumption

Concrete pavement lasts longer than asphalt pavements, meaning virtually no maintenance, as well as considerably longer cycles between repair or reconstruction. In addition to the cost-savings, these features also result in fewer demands for energy and less environmental impact overall. Here's why:

• Fewer raw materials are required over the typical pavement design life (20-years or more);
• Lower energy consumption during construction, which results in direct savings in motor fuels and oils for heavy construction equipment. (This is especially true with two-lift asphalt construction.)
• Less energy required as motorists navigate around work zones; and
• Less energy required because fewer work zones mean less traffic congestion.

ACPA offers a number of helpful documents about concrete pavements' role in sustainable development.

Follow these links to download free copies of ACPA's QD010P: Enlightened and QD016P: Natural Advantage. Click here to visit ACPA's bookstore to order a copy of ACPA's Stormwater Management with Pervious Concrete (IS334P). This and other literature is available at www.pavement.com. Alternatively, call 1-800-868-6733 or fax orders to 847-966-9666.  ACPA members, be sure to visit the “members only” area of the website for discounted rates.

Questions? Contact Scott Haislip at 219-922-8104.

When Chicago-area transportation officials called on the concrete pavement industry to help repair a busy stretch of urban roadway with hundreds of bus pads, the end product resulted in big time and cost savings.

Now, five years later, the innovative concrete overlays for the bus pads are still holding strong, while the surrounding asphalt pavement, also placed in 2002, is rutting and shoving.

The asphalt roadway of Western Avenue was in dire need of repair.

This included a series of bus pads to support the hundreds of buses traveling this route each day.

The existing asphalt bus pads exhibited rutting, shoving, and pushing, posing a safety problem for commuters and great concern to the Cook County Highway Department, the agency responsible for the design and implementation of repairs.

The Department chose to resurface the entire roadway with asphalt. For the bus pads, the agency’s practice at the time was to replace the sections full-depth with concrete, but the cost of replacement was said to be too high because it required removal of an underlying layer of granite paving stones. A few concrete patches also were scattered along the roadway.

The Department called on the concrete pavement industry, which recommended the use of unique new fiber-reinforcement technology and a thin overlay design that avoided any need to remove the granite pavers.

Pressing into Action
Engineers from Applied Research Associates, Inc, Champaign, Ill., analyzed the likely stresses from bus and truck traffic. Materials parameters were based on rough estimates of the materials properties provided by Illinois Chapter, Inc.—American Concrete Pavement Association.

The concrete pavement industry then recommended a four-inch concrete pavement section, built with a four-foot transverse by 40-in. longitudinal joint spacing. The unusual 40-in. longitudinal joint spacing was chosen to control slab size while fitting within an unusual 10-ft lane width. The dimensions of the buspads are 10 ft wide by 100 ft long. This joint spacing provides for bus wheel paths more down the center of the small slabs rather than the longitudinal joints.

Though the slabs sizes were designed to control environmental stresses, Cook County wanted to be sure of long life with little possibility for distresses. In response, the industry incorporated a new generation of synthetic structural fibers into the concrete mixture.

The Strux 90/40 developed by W.R. Grace are specifically designed to replace mesh reinforcement. They have yielded impressive results in testing performed under the direction of Jeff Roesler, Ph.D., P.E., Department of Civil Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana.

The fibers were added at the addition rate of 7.5 lbs. of fibers per cubic yard, a quantity significantly higher than conventional practice. Additionally, W.R. Grace provided a new fiber-insertion system for contractor, E. A. Cox, Chicago, and material producer, Aztec Material Service Corp. to use.

This system “refluffs” the prepackaged bagged product and blows them into the ready-mix truck before charging the drum. This ensures adequate distribution and minimizes the likelihood of fiber “balling," a common problem when large quantities of fibers are used in a mixture.

Proper dispersion of the fibers is essential in producing a mixture that is both easy to finish and which provides the needed structural characteristics.

The industry and agency have inspected the bus pad's performance each year since their placement. The bus pads not only cost two thirds less than the full-depth concrete replacement option, but they have stood up to the hundreds of buses they bear each day and required no maintenance. The adjacent asphalt pavements, however, can't claim the same: they are already showing significant distress.

For more information on how to incorporate this procedure for bus pads in your area, contact Randell C. Riley, P.E., Executive Director/Engineer, or Jimie Wheeler, Promotional Director - Northern Illinois, with the Illinois Chapter, Inc.—ACPA.

For the first time, the Transportation Research Board is offering companies with transportation-related products and services to exhibit at or sponsor its annual meeting.

The deadline to reserve exhibit space is December 15 or