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Dust Settles As Black Tank Road Pavement Trial Begins

Latrobe City Council is undertaking a trial of five different pavement surfaces on Black Tank Road in Glengarry in a bid to guide council’s future maintenance program and methods on unsealed roads.

By Latrobe City - 10th October 2008 - Back to News

Contractors applied the different pavement surfaces last week to five test strips on the road, each 400 metres in length.

Latrobe City mayor, Cr Bruce Lougheed, said the trial sections compare the current practice used for resheeting unsealed roads with treatments that vary pulverisation, moisture conditioning and additives.

"Latrobe City Council will be monitoring the various pavement treatments over the next six months, looking at pavement degradation including shape and pavement loss," Cr Lougheed explained.

"It is anticipated that some of the treatments will retain more pavement material on the road surface for a longer time, with a side benefit of reducing some dust emissions."

Acting manager infrastructure operations, Dean Morahan, said the vast majority of unsealed roads within Latrobe City were developed in days when little technical input was applied to their design, construction and ongoing maintenance.

"Many decades later, the legacy is higher maintenance costs and standards that are below what is often expected by today’s drivers," Mr Morahan said.

"There are approximately 600 kilometres of unsealed roads in the municipality, and while existing practices are a large improvement on the old days, we believe there are opportunities to improve the performance and management of the unsealed road network which can result in improved safety and ride quality, and as a side benefit reduced maintenance costs.

"Black Tank Road in Glengarry was chosen, as the trial needs to be on a straight road with a consistent pavement throughout the trial area. The road also needs to have a reasonable traffic volume to be able to measure the pavement degradation over a relatively short period, being months not years, and needs to be easily accessible for monitoring purposes," Mr Morahan added.

Latrobe City councillor, Cr Susan Lloyd, said she was delighted Black Tank Road had been chosen for the trial as whatever the outcome of the assessments, residents would benefit from an improved road surface and reduced dust in the immediate future.

"Residents in Black Tank Road have been particularly concerned at dust levels caused by the increasing traffic using the road. Some large vehicles use the road daily, including two school buses, a milk tanker, and during summer water tankers are prevalent; plus of course other heavy vehicles in the course of their business operations.

"The dust problems not only create a hazard for other motorists, but make riding a bicycle to school hazardous as vision can be restricted. These days’ the road is also used as the main link to the Gippsland Plains Rail Trail between Traralgon and Glengarry, so the road’s condition for cyclists needs to be taken into the equation," Cr Lloyd said.

"Black Tank Road will now be regularly inspected for ride quality, deformation, deterioration and loss of pavement material. An analysis of construction and maintenance costs will be conducted at the end of the trial to guide council’s future maintenance program and methods," Cr Lloyd added.


Source: www.gippsland.com

Published by: news@gippsland.com



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