When I was a kid in 1970s Long Island, N.Y., I’d regularly ride along the Southern State Parkway with my parents. Running east to west for 25-plus miles required a 10-cent toll in both directions. Even to my pre-teen mind that seemed a bit onerous, having to dig a dime out each way. I joined […]
maintenance
Research Is Another Resource Texans Can Rely On
Texas is a resource-rich state. Blessed with oil and natural gas reserves, Texas has been a principal supplier of natural resources for the nation for more than a century. Although resource development is always welcome — and a boon to the state’s economy — planning for it can be challenging. New discoveries of oil and […]
Dredging Up Business: TxDOT Considers Maintenance Options for the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway in Texas
The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW) stretches 1,100 miles, from St. Marks, Florida, to Brownsville, Texas. The waterway’s 379-mile Texas portion (the GIWW-T) links 11 deep-draft ports and 13 shallow-draft ports and handles two-thirds of the entire waterway’s traffic. In 2012, 90 percent of GIWW-T freight was classified as petroleum and chemical related. Maintaining the GIWW-T […]
TxDOT, TTI Team Up to Address Roadway Damage Resulting from Energy Development
The energy sector is having a dramatic positive economic impact on Texas and the nation. But many Texas roadways have experienced accelerated pavement degradation due to heavy truck loads and increased traffic. An interagency agreement between the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) seeks to give districts the necessary […]
Looking for Lessons Learned: TTI Examines Strategies Other States Use to Cope with Energy Development
One way or the other, the oil and gas industry seems to be ever-present in the minds of Texans. Through last summer, oil prices over $100 per barrel were fueling a boom in drilling activity across the state, especially in the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford Shale formations. Texas was supporting 48 percent of all […]
Helping TxDOT Build Better Bridges
BRIDGE TO THE PAST One often hears the phrase, “They just don’t build ’em like they used to.” It’s true of many things, including bridges. In Fort Worth, Texas, local historic preservation groups expressed concerns that historically significant bridge structures in the area could be endangered due to infrastructure upgrades demanded by modern traffic. In […]
Designing and Maintaining Tougher Roadways for Texas
Oil and gas production has increased dramatically in Texas in recent years, and every indication is that this trend will continue into the foreseeable future. The state now has 48 percent of all active drilling rigs in the United States. Many of these rigs are in the Eagle Ford Shale play in South Texas. Recent […]
Transportation Research Challenges
Transportation research is a multi-disciplinary, national effort to identify and solve the challenges we face in planning, building and maintaining the thousands of miles of roadway in this country. Traffic Safety Fatal rear-end collisions nationally in 2012 — 1,933 with 120 of those occurring in highway work zones. Trade In 2012, a record 5.1 million […]
Warm mix is HOT!: Paving the way cleaner, faster and cheaper in Texas
What began in Europe is now the hottest thing in asphalt in Texas and the U.S. There are many ways to get there, but the goal is the same: to lower the temperature of asphalt by 35 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit prior to application. “When we started the warm mix research project, I thought we’d […]
Caring for concrete
It’s easy enough to fix a pothole, but how easy is it to actually prevent them from appearing at all? Given the number of cracks and potholes that plague Texas roadways, there is no question about the value that a successful preventive maintenance could have in delaying more serious problems. Various methods exist to identify […]
Varying seal-coat asphalt rates across the roadway
As the winter months wind down, Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) district offices throughout the state will complete planning for the hectic summer seal-coat season. Best applied when the weather is warm, seal coats are by far the most popular preventative maintenance treatment used in Texas. A recently completed research project, sponsored by TxDOT and […]