State Transportation Secretary Paul
Mattox told state lawmakers Monday that unless some significant funding source
is identified revenues coming into the state Road Fund look flat for the
foreseeable future.
“It has been pretty much flat the past
12 years. Looking forward for the next six, from numbers we get from the state
Tax Department, it looks flat for the next six years,” he said during a legislative
interim committee meeting at the state capitol.
Mattox said he challenged his
maintenance engineers at a recent meeting “to be innovative and look outside
the box.”
The transportation secretary is talking
about things like rubberized asphalt and using polymers in paving. He said the
DOH will have to like to reduce the thickness of its resurfacing jobs.
“We currently put an inch and a half of
asphalt down on our roads–we’re going to have to start putting three-quarters
of an inch or an inch but increasing the strength by using the polymers which
is still cheaper than putting down the inch and a half like we’ve done in the
past,” Mattox said.
The DOH also plans to reduce the use of asphalt in the
repaving of county routes. Mattox said more cheaper “surface treatments” will
be used.
There are also things like recycled
asphalt that can be used. Mattox said that could cut costs by 40 to 60 percent.
Sec. Mattox also told lawmakers that
unless Congress comes through with new funding some federally funded projects
would have to shutdown later year.
The state Road Fund is up in revenues
about $31 million this fiscal year but that’s been swallowed up in a $13
million overage in snow and ice removal and pothole repair from the winter.
