Road Construction: Asphalt costs more, so less paving to be done

[thelakelander]

Keep this up and rail construction will certainly be a bargain for Jacksonville.

Asphalt costs more, so less paving to be done   

Sunday, 01 June 2008 

By JILL WHALEN
Staff Writer

The rising cost of asphalt means that some area municipalities are cutting back on the roadwork they had originally planned for this summer. It also will impact the state’s road program sometime in the future.
The soaring price of asphalt is due in part to the rising cost of oil â€" one of the ingredients used to make the blacktop. According to figures published by the asphalt industry, the cost of a ton of asphalt has almost doubled since January 2007.

Jill Hawk, a Conyngham councilwoman and member of the borough streets committee, knows all too well that the price to pave roads has gone up. Therefore, she said, the borough is making changes to its original roadwork plans. “We are cutting back,” she said. “We only have so much to go toward paving.”
Hawk said the prices wouldn’t keep the borough from patching potholes. And she said borough officials might still decide to pave roads on an as-needed basis. “But we’re hoping we can hold off until the liquid fuels money comes in next April,” Hawk said. Even the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation expects to feel the pinch, spokeswoman Karen Dussinger said.

“PennDOT has a finite budget,” she said. “Everything is tied together. One pool is for maintenance â€" and road paving is considered maintenance.”  Dussinger explained that PennDOT does have a number of road surfacing treatments â€" from oil-and-chip to complete paving. Most treatments, however, use oil-based products.
But she said rising asphalt prices shouldn’t impact the work scheduled for this summer. “It won’t catch up to us for about a year because we’ve already bid out the roads,” she said. “It (the price increases) doesn’t immediately affect us and the roads we do, but it does catch up with us. It will limit the number of roads that we do.”

James “Bucky” Kulaga, a West Hazleton councilman, said that the borough has no “big” paving jobs planned. It does, however, plan to keep up with potholes despite the rising costs. And, he said, Fawn Drive and Deer Run Road are in such poor shape that they have to be addressed.  “We do have a situation where we have to bite the bullet,” he said.  Patrick Bartorillo, general manager for Slusser Brothers, West Hazleton, explained that the costs associated with manufacturing asphalt is behind the price increases. Slusser Brothers, which has three plants in the area, manufactures about 700,000 tons of different types of asphalt annually.  The blacktop used for paving roads and highways, Bartorillo said, contains something called liquid asphalt. A petroleum by-product, liquid asphalt acts as a binding agent.

“It’s a by-product of crude oil,” he explained. “The cost of it has gone up tremendously.”
Only 5 percent to 6 percent of the paving mix contains liquid asphalt, which Bartorillo said is the most expensive ingredient. It wasn’t always that way, though.
“Like fuel, the cost is going up,” he said. Last year at this time, he said, liquid asphalt cost about $300 per ton. Now it costs $450, Bartorillo explained. Costs seemed to rise following Hurricane Katrina, which affected many Gulf Coast oil refineries.

“Since Katrina, the price has gone up, stayed up and is going up constantly,” he said.
The increase means that about $27 worth of liquid asphalt is used to make a ton of paving material. Last year, only about $18 of the additive went into the blacktop mix.  Bartorillo mentioned that the Pennsylvania Asphalt Pavement Association Web site, www.pahotmix.org, publishes current asphalt prices. A ton of asphalt is currently $517.  “We inform the customers that our price is indexed to the price of asphalt that is published,” he said, noting that the company is not able to absorb the price fluctuations.   â€œOur price will change with that,” he said. “It will go up or down. Unfortunately, it has gone up quite a bit.”

In many cases, Bartorillo said, the cost affects how much paving a municipality will do.
“What we have seen in the market in the area â€" the municipalities and even PennDOT â€" have a set dollar amount that they’re going to spend (for paving projects),” he said. They’ll spend the budgeted amount â€" but it won’t cover as many roads, he explained.  And, he said, there aren’t any ways to save money on the product since PennDOT specifications call for street paving materials to be of a certain quality.  Before the blacktop can be applied, a thin layer of emulsified asphalt is smoothed over a roadway, Bartorillo said. While costs to manufacture the emulsified mix are up, it isn’t as expensive as asphalt.  Bartorillo also noted that delivery fees on all types of road cover are up thanks to the skyrocketing costs of fuel.  The Greater Hazleton Area Civic Partnership is doing a surfacing project at the Greater Hazleton Rails to Trails, and although it isn’t using any type of oil-based product, project bids came in double the original estimates.

Bob Skulsky, the partnership’s executive director, said limestone would be used to top the trail.
A master site plan completed in 2005 estimated the cost at $30,000. The lowest bid, however, was $55,000. While the resurfacing will be done thanks to $20,000 from an anonymous donor and more grant money, Skulsky was surprised by the difference in cost. “All that was attributed to the cost of everything going up,” he said.  While the limestone contains no oil, fuel is needed to transport the limestone from the quarry to the trail.

http://www.standardspeaker.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7573&Itemid=2

[Ocklawaha]

Don't worry Lake, we'll shift to GATE CONCRETE... or maybe the company will cut us a deal on the black stuff.
In this respect, we're better off then most. Now if I could just get Gate to make concrete crossties and cantenary poles? Hummm? Maybe we're onto something?

Ocklawaha