We are operating in a time where the short fall of road fund revenues forces each of us to take a broader view of what will enable us to continue to build and maintain our infrastructure. A judicious use of road taxpayer dollars calls for us to continuously exercise our search for the best means by which we spend those dollars. Specifically, what pavement type will serve the public’s best interest in terms of lower initial cost to construct and a lower cost to maintain for the life of the pavement?

Studies continue to support us with evidence that pavements built using Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) are the most economical. And, only HMA pavements provide the motoring public with benefits in addition to the economic savings of initial construction and low long term maintenance costs. When a pavement is constructed using QUALITY Hot Mix Asphalt, the general motoring public and its road owning agency realize the full capacity of those additional benefits or as I like to refer to them as the “Asphalt Advantage.”

The Asphalt Advantage: Head to head no other pavement is as quick to construct or rehabilitate as one built of Hot Mix Asphalt. No other pavement can produce as smooth a ride and sustain that smoothness over the life of the pavement as well as Hot Mix Asphalt. No other pavement is as quiet as Hot Mix Asphalt. And, no other pavement is “Perpetual” as is a Hot Mix Asphalt pavement.

This issue of “The Iowa Asphalt Report” highlights an article written by Mr. John Bellizzi, retired Public Works Director after some 40+ years with the City of Des Moines. In it he draws the picture of how the revolutionary changes within our industry, here in Iowa, now allows for government agencies and consulting firms to easily and consistently build high quality Hot Mix Asphalt pavements.

This makes for a win, win, win situation. It equates to a huge economic savings to the Iowa tax payers, allows for more miles of new construction and rehabilitation, and provides the general motoring public the additional advantages only provided by an HMA pavement.