April Showers Bring May...POTHOLES!
Remember the old adage, April Showers Bring May Flowers? Well if you own asphalt pavement, you know the Spring Thaw will reveal cracks that opened up and froze repeatedly during harsh winter conditions—and damaging cracks brings out-of-control potholes to deal with sooner than you think! But, with a little forward thinking, you don’t have to nervously watch your budget and “wait and see what Spring brings.” Understanding the Cycle Leading up to Potholes Makes Regular Pavement Maintenance the Solution! The Cycle Explained "Pavement distresses accumulate as asphalt surfaces age and traffic pounds them. If timely maintenance isn't performed, distresses are compounded. Cracks become potholes and potholes become craters." And, after a variety of increasing expensive failed fixes—the end result of this decay cycle is always—costly Total Reconstruction. The Solution Also SAVES MONEY: “Road agencies just don’t have the money to reconstruct bad roads anymore.” “The key to preventing the issue is early and regular pavement maintenance, and the cost of addressing minor deficiencies is much less than addressing major deficiencies. We have to do road maintenance when the roads are in fair-to-good condition, rather than waiting until they are in poor condition." Putting the Pothole Epidemic into Perspective “Americans pay about $21 a month on average in state and federal road taxes — a fraction of what they pay for cable television or a cell phone. And yet what is one of our most (personal) expensive investments out there? It's our automobile. And we're wrecking our automobiles because we're hitting potholes ... The key is not fixing them. The key is preventing them." – Larry Galehouse, P.E., P.S., Director, National Center for Pavement Preservation Wouldn’t it make more sense to spend a dollar to preserve newer pavements, keeping them like new longer, rather than spending $10.80 to patch, repair and replace? We think so too—and we can help you STOP your Pothole Cycle before it gets out-of-control. Contact us today (Quotes taken from Preventing and repairing potholes and pavement cracks By John Davis, Asphalt Magazine )
