Cheaper gas a boon for road projects in Western Pennsylvania

Falling prices at the gas pump will mean more miles of freshly paved streets in many Western Pennsylvania municipalities next year.

“We're looking to get a little more bang for our buck,” said Ronald Bor­czyk, director of administrative services in Bellevue.

Bellevue boosted its paving budget to $160,000, up from $100,000, to take advantage of 2014 bids that came in 15 percent lower than anticipated, Borczyk said. A $100,000 budget typically allows it to pave three main streets and part of another street, he said.

Based on where prices were in December, prices might drop another 5 percent or 6 percent and, overall, the borough hopes to pave five to seven streets, he said.

The average price for asphalt has fallen from $623 per liquid ton in September to $579.50 per liquid ton in December, said Gary Hoffman, executive director of the Pennsylvania Asphalt Pavement Association.

The liquid asphalt produced from crude oil makes up about 6 percent of the hot mix asphalt laid on a roadway, but it makes up about half the price of the substance.

“The asphalt is a relatively small percentage,” Hoffman said. “But it's a big-ticket item.”

The rest of the mix consists of sand and crushed aggregate.

A ton of hot mix costs about $75 in Pennsylvania, and it takes about 1,175 tons to pave a 12-foot-wide lane, 3 inches thick for one mile. That comes out to about $88,000 just for the asphalt used in the paving.

Mt. Lebanon spends about $2.1 million rebuilding roads each year and another $275,000 resurfacing roads, said Public Works Director Tom Kelley.

The $2.1 million covers about 1.3 miles because the project removes everything and rebuilds the road from scratch.

“We're essentially building new streets in place,” he said.

The resurfacing projects grind off the top 3 inches of a road and repave it. The $275,000 typically covers a mile of road.

The municipality uses a pavement condition index to measure the condition of roads and determine which ones to rebuild. It's targeting roads that fall below 50 on the 0 to 100 index. The long-term goal is to have all roads score at least 70 or higher, Kelley said.

“We want to make sure that we get our road inventory in good shape,” he said.

Simply resurfacing roads that are low on the index doesn't fix their underlying structural problems, such as poor drainage, that cause the paving to crack and fail, he said.

The municipality plans to bid out its projects in March. It probably will add streets to the resurfacing list if it the bids come back lower than expected, he said.

“We always have streets we can add on to the list,” Kelley said.

Monroeville plans to spend the same on paving this year as last year, about $250,000, said Manager Tim Little.

It's looking at a price break as an opportunity to fix roads that need more work.

“We may pave the same amount of miles of roads this year,” he said.

Ross has increased its paving budget from $1 million to $1.5 million to take advantage of the anticipated price break, said Manager Doug Sample.

“We do hope to get a couple of more roads in there because of the low gas prices,” he said.

How much of a break the township will get on the bids depends on how many other people are bidding at the same time.

“We did three miles of road last year for $900,000,” he said. “We hope to get five, six miles of road.”

The township is paying for the extra work with $500,000 out of its reserve fund, but it hopes to make the expansion permanent because of several high-end retail developments that are nearing completion, he said.

“We might be able to do something through those developments to keep the higher paving level without raising taxes,” Sample said. “That remains to be seen.”

Source: Tribune Live