The Ontario Construction Report – OCTOBER 2013 – PAGE OCR B1 introduces program to facilitate concrete paving specifications Concrete achieves competitiveness for highway and urban parking areas, but load restrictions on existing roads add unnecessary costs STAFF WRITER – The Ontario Construction Report The rules of the road are changing for Ontario’s ready mix concrete industry, notably because concrete paving costs are now comparable to asphalt at installation, adding even more weight to the durable material’s proven long- term maintenance savings. However, there are two challenges to this new con- crete-friendly road building environment. Many owners and engineers aren’t familiar with concrete pavement specifications, and when the projects are approved, ready- mix trucks often encounter outdated load restrictions to access job sites. The Ready Mixed Concrete Association of Ontario (RMCAO) is leading the way in developing solutions to these issues. Tom Bellis, RMCAO’s marketing and communica- tions director, says the Ontario Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MTO) has awarded the 11 most recent “alternative bids” for concrete pavement since the gov- ernment opened the door to distinctive and alternative concrete pavement bidding specifications. The alternative bidding process has saved “the province (and taxpayers) well over $45 million when compared to the lowest asphalt bids,” he said. “The asphalt pricing index has increased 148 per cent during the past 4.5 years, and fluctuated between an in- crease of 45 and 113 per cent during the past 20 months,” Bellis said. “Concrete has not been as seriously impacted by the current state of the economy and continues to pro- vide a stable price point. On top of this initial (lower) cost, savings can be found in concrete roads because they can save up to 50 per cent or more in aggregates for con- struction, reducing truck trips, traffic congestions and emissions.” Obviously, the specifications need to be different for concrete roads and the lack of knowledge about how to specify for concrete requirements has proven to be the biggest roadblock in wider adaption of concrete paving. Bellis believes that many municipalities and private prop- erty owners could save money with concrete construction on parking lots, intersections and roads if they knew how to set up the alternative concrete specification, and here the RMCAO will offer some practical assistance. “We’re introducing a new Pavement Design Assis- tance Program (PDAP), that will provide municipal and consulting engineers with the technical assistance needed to have available concrete designs based on project-spe- cific criteria,” he said. This means that municipalities, owners or consultants can now arrange for RMCAO to review the projects they are currently considering and have RMCAO prepare a preliminary cost estimate for a possible concrete solution at no cost to them. “RMCAO’s expertise is concrete and while we can develop detail preliminary cost estimates, we don’t want to be in the business of consulting engi- neering so the program is for assistance up to a certain point. The program will not go as far as preparing final documents or developing engineering designs for con- struction,” he said. “Our objective is to assist others in following the MTO lead by issuing alternative bids that include a concrete construction option to achieve the most cost competitive solution in both the short and long term.” “Concrete is extremely adaptable for all pavements, especially with new permeable (pervious) pavements that solve storm water runoff problems,” he said. ––––––––––––––––––––––– Please see page OCR B2