Asphalt vs Concrete Roads

[cityimrov]

I've noticing around town that several concrete roads are now being replaced by asphalt roads.  I'm no civil engineer but can someone tell me the advantage of this?  I heard that concrete roads are more durable and last longer but there must be a good reason we're replacing them with asphalt ones. 

[acme54321]

Concrete is more expensive to build, but holds up a lot better.  What roads are you talking about?

What I don't get is on I-75 north towards Atlanta has sections of concrete, then sections of asphalts, back to concrete and so on.

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

I doubt that they are being 'replaced' as opposed to 'recoated'.

Concrete is highly advantageous compared to asphalt, especially in our climate that doesn't have a huge temperature swing from season to season and practically zero freezing.  The #1 enemy of concrete (and most rigid structures in general) is the combination of moisture and freezing temps.

The one and only deterrent is up front cost for the concrete.

To cut costs, roadbuilders have been cutting down the size of the quarry and increasing the amount of silica in the mix to maintain the psi rating, but it wears a lot faster.  30-35 years compared to 20-25.

At least these are the main points that I remember from several seminars that I really didn't care to be at. 

[Ocklawaha]

Cost. There is a direct relationship between traffic density and roadway wear. I-75 is probably on and off concrete at each small city between the Florida state line and the Tennessee line, because urbanized areas see much more traffic then the open rural interstate. To prevent a roadway in an urbanized area from crumbling under the loads concrete is usually chosen.

I've posted a chart below that explains how much a 'cost cutting' disregard for maintenance will come back to bite you in the butt. Hello JTA? Has anyone in the palace driven over I-95 at the flyovers at I-295/9-A lately? I-95 has almost reverted back to a gravel road under those bridges.

One legal 80,000 pound GVW tractor-trailer truck does as much damage to road pavement as 9,600 cars. (Highway Research Board, NAS, 1962).

OCKLAWAHA

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

Pre-1960's Concrete


Post-1960's Concrete


Asphalt

[cityimrov]

Concrete is more expensive to build, but holds up a lot better.  What roads are you talking about?

What I don't get is on I-75 north towards Atlanta has sections of concrete, then sections of asphalts, back to concrete and so on.

There's a few but off the top of my head, several portions of I-295 were concrete roads but for some reason they replaced it with asphalt.  There's also parts of I-10, I-95 that's been done on too.  Recently, the road project at US17/Roosevelt is going to be turned from concrete to asphalt. 

The part they are replacing doesn't seem to be too much damaged but they are doing a lot of work there.  The sign says something like "Road improvement project by Duval Asphalt".  I don't know, they might be fixing the concrete and the asphalt in Duval Asphalt is name only while they also do concrete work.