A half-day class focusing exclusively on pavement smoothness, including delving into recent changes in Caltrans smoothness specifications, technology and paving practices, will be held on Tuesday, May 24 in Santa Rosa. Register for the morning class HERE. Register for the afternoon class HERE.

The class, taught by CalAPA member Mike Robinson, P.E., who has years of practical knowledge as having worked at Caltrans,

	Mike Robinson

for CalAPA-member companies and as a paving consultant. A flier that contains details about the half-day class can be downloaded HERE. Pavement designers, specifiers, paving contractors, inspectors and others are strongly encouraged to attend.

The first class will be held on Tuesday, May 24 from 8 a.m. to noon at the City of Santa Rosa, UFO Building Room F, in Santa Rosa. The class will be repeated in the afternoon from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the same location. The early-bird price for the classes are $99 for members and agency personnel, and $119 for all others.

The classes will cover spec changes and terminology, measuring smoothness, incentives and disincentives, inspection and acceptance, smoothness technology, effective use of the ProVal software, the Inertial Profiler, IRI, grinding plans, "Superpave" considerations and more. The course curriculum has been developed under the guidance of the CalAPA Technical Advisory Committee and reviewed by Caltrans.

Each attendee will receive a handy reference workbook, and also a certificate verifying that they have completed four (4) hours of Professional Development Hours (PDH) of technical instruction.

Watch the Asphalt Insider newsletter for announcements on other technical classes to be held around the state. To view the entire on-line calendar of all upcoming CalAPA technical classes, click HERE.

 

Editor's Note: The following "Letter to the Editor" appeared May 10 in the Chico Enterprise Record newspaper. It is written by Rene Vercruyssen of CalAPA member Knife River Construction.

Dear Editor:

Recently you read on this page that Butte County Public Works Director Mike Crump is sounding the alarm about our roads being "at risk." At risk of what you might ask.

Unfortunately, Crump and I are professional engineers which denotes are general inability to effectively communicate with anyone but other engineers. (Boring discussions to be sure.) Lucky for us my father, a retired road builder, is not an engineer and does in fact communicate well with most. As my dad describes it, our roads are at risk for total failure because they have cracked to the point that the surface can no longer keep water from turning the soil under the road bed into mud. Mud cannot support a road.

With that bit of information we can all be expert road inspectors. If your road is cracked to the point that water poured on its surface seeps into the cracks your road is "at risk" of total failure next winter.

I join Crump in sounding the alarm regarding our local roads being at risk of failure, but I manage our county's largest road building company and I would expect you to filter my comments through an obvious bias. So don't take my word for it, become a road inspector and see for yourself.

And remember to be safe out there.