Salton City Roadways (Overall Winner)

Location

Borrego Salton Seaway and S. Marina Dr. off Hwy 86 in Salton City

City or County Responsible for Project

County of Imperial

Category

Roads: Efficient and Sustainable Road Maintenance, Construction and Reconstruction Projects.

Author

Craig Harrington

Organization

Pavement Recycling Systems

Address

10240 San Sevaine Way

Phone

805-405-1455

Fax

951-682-1094

Project Description

The County of Imperial is committed to improving the overall quality of their road system and local streets in the most cost-effective, environmentally beneficial, and safest manner. The Salton City Roadways projects represents a sustainable engineering approach which strengthens or recycles existing on-site materials instead of the costlier and more environmentally detrimental remove and replace construction method. Utilizing Caltrans methodology and designing with Gravel Equivalency/Gravel factors, all the existing asphalt and base/subgrade materials were recycled and strengthened on-site. Cement Stabilization of the subgrades was used to provide a stabilized base section on which to pave upon; Cold Central Plant Recycling (CCPR) was used to recycle the existing asphalt into a newly paved base course asphalt section that was subsequently capped with a thinner hot mix asphalt (HMA) overlay. On this 2.8-mile project, the newly designed structural section was composed of 2” of HMA over 3.5” of CCPR over 8” and 12” of cement stabilized subgrade soils. In addition, 2” of CCPR was used to pave the shoulders of the roads This project achieved the following impressive environmental benefits: • 67% Recycled Asphalt Pavement (RAP) usage, recycling 11,043 tons of existing asphalt assets • Conservation of 24,774 tons of non-renewable aggregate resources • Landfill avoidance of 13,594 CY of subgrade soils • Elimination of 4,701 heavily loaded trucks exporting and importing materials to the project site, along with their associated wear and tear on associated roads, traffic congestion, fuel, oil, energy usage, and Greenhouse Gas emissions • Cost savings of over $1 million * Average Energy and Greenhouse Gas reductions of over 80% Agencies and owners are taking note of the utilization of the competitively bid in-place recycling technologies such as Cold In-Place Recycling (CIR), Cold Central Plant Recycling (CCPR), Full Depth Reclamation (FDR), and Hot In-Place Recycling (HIR) that over 150 CA. agencies have specified with great success to stretch their limited paving budget dollars. According to the 2016 Needs Assessment Report, “Save Our Streets”, sponsored by CEAC, CSAC, League of Cities and other transportation agencies, use of these technologies has been conservatively estimated to enable savings of $823 million/year and increase the paving budget by 41%. And this is assuming only 50% of eligible streets are suitable for recycling. In these fiscally challenging and environmentally conscious times the Salton City Roadways project is one example of how our engineering community can help solve the financial and environmental challenges agencies and owners are facing with respect to our asphalt pavement infrastructure needs.