CALENDAR

  

Did you miss an issue of the California Asphalt Insider? No problem! Past editions of the newsletter are available at the CalAPA newsletter archive page.

  

CalAPA produces a highly regarded magazine, California Asphalt, and an annual membership directory. To view back issues of the magazine, click HERE. For advertising sales in the magazine and directory, click HERE or call Kerry Hoover with Construction Marketing Services at (909) 772-3121.

  

There's plenty of information, and misinformation, out there about asphalt pavements. Click HERE to get the straight scoop at the Asphalt Facts website.  

This weekly bulletin contains the latest news and information of interest to the asphalt pavement industry in California. Please feel free to distribute this newsletter to others who may be interested in asphalt pavements.

Editor's Note: In last week's Asphalt Insider, we offered up our completely subjective picks for the Top 10 stores that impacted the asphalt industry in 2014. You can read it HERE. This week we offer our predictions of the Top 10 stories that will be making headlines in 2015. If you're curious how our prognosticators fared with last year's predictions, you can read them HERE.

 

1. Congress finally comes together on a long-term funding plan for transportation, but not without plenty of drama. It is still perceived by many as an interim solution while policy-makers struggle to get a handle on structural changes to how to pay for transportation infrastructure preservation and improvement.

 

2. The state economy continues to improve over the course of the year, at a faster clip than the nation as a whole, resulting in increasing building activity but also putting pressure on prices and increasing competition for well-qualified workers.

 

3. As new Caltrans specifications arrive in projects, conflicts increase over new testing requirements. Local agencies that reference Caltrans specifications scramble to figure out which parts of the new specification language applies to local projects and which parts do not.

 

4. Crude oil prices will dominate the headlines in 2015 as price shifts, up or down, have broad impacts locally on the cost of doing business, materials prices, driving habits and more.

 

5. The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) ultimately prevails in its appeal to the state Supreme Court of a lawsuit filed by environmental groups challenging its 40-year, $200 billion transportation plan, although SANDAG agrees to make some modifications to appease the environmental community.

 

6. At the urging of industry, Caltrans agrees to a package of reforms designed to improve material testing accuracy, timeliness, reporting and training.

 

7. Consolidation in the construction industry will continue to make news in 2015, with several high-profile mergers and acquisitions making headlines, as well as some company surprising leadership changes.

 

8. Public works agencies, particularly at the local level, will face increasing pressure to implement environmentally friendly practices in their operations and in their transportation improvement and maintenance programs. Citizen activism on this front becomes increasingly more sophisticated, and will require additional time and resources from companies and agencies to respond.

 

9. Policy-makers in California begin to coalesce around a new way to pay for transportation infrastructure enhancement and preservation that moves the state away from fuel taxes and toward a mileage-based fee.

 

10. The "brain drain" of qualified and experienced engineers and technical personnel at public agencies at all levels will continue in 2015, resulting in increased pressure to recruit, train and develop the next generation of pavement experts.

In 1895, three men that made up the newly formed California Highway Commission climbed aboard a horse-drawn wagon and crisscrossed the state's vast reaches to map out what would eventually become California's master plan for freeways and highways.

 

Years later, as paved roads replaced wagon trails, state engineers and maintenance personnel conducted "windshield" surveys to monitor the condition of pavements and identify those that needed attention.

 

This month will mark the beginning of a new frontier of sorts as the California Department of  Transportation (Caltrans) begins collecting precise information on every crack and bump on the state highway system, including exact GPS coordinates, for use in prioritizing scarce pavement maintenance resources.

 

The department recently awarded an $8 million contract to a Tulsa, Okla.,-based firm to collect to measure the depth and width of every pavement distress in the 15,000-mile freeway and highway system, and link those measurements with precise Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates.

 

The company, Pathways Services Inc., uses sensors and computers mounted on and inside specially-equipped vans, and the data is funneled into special software that collects and displays the information. The $1 million vans take digital photographs the entire road surface and right-of-way in high-definition, as well as use lasers to collect measurements of every crack and rut in the pavement surface. 

 

The competitively bid contract, which required potential vendors to demonstrate their equipment in the field,  calls for the entire statewide highway network to be surveyed twice, between January and August, including much of the National Highway System  "off-system" network as well, department pavement managers say.

 

The data will ultimately be funneled into the department's new Pavement Management System and be the foundation for rating pavements and analyzing and selecting the best new projects for all pavements.

The deployment of the new measurement technology comes on the heels of the department publishing new pavement smoothness specifications that utilize the vehicle-mounted inertial profiler to measure pavement smoothness of newly constructed or rehabilitated pavement surfaces at driving speeds. It is replacing the venerable California Profilograph, a gangly non-motorized device that could only go as fast as the person walking next to it.

For more information on the company that will be conducting the pavement surveys and the technology that will be utilized, click HERE.

It takes about $1 million to equip the vans that will be collecting pavement condition information of California freeways and highways.

  

  

The evening will also feature the installation of officers for the association and some special recognition for leaders who have helped shape our industry. The deadline to purchase tickets at the special "early bird" price of $169. After Jan. 7 tickets are $189 until they are sold out.

Special thanks go out to our 2015 event sponsors: Akzo Nobel, Alon Asphalt Co., Blue Diamond / Sully-Miller, Butler-Justice, CRM Co., LLC, Ergon Asphalt & Emulsions, Inc., Holliday Rock and Vulcan Materials.

  

We hope you enjoy CalAPA's Asphalt Insider. We are committed to providing you with the most up-to-date information on technical issues, regulation, news and events in California that may impact the asphalt pavement industry. Click HERE to contact us with any comments or suggestions.