Surface grading, aggregate loss, and dust palliatives required to safely maintain heavily used gravel roads can approach $20,000 per km per year. An example of this is the Tahsis Road on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. The road is multi-purpose, and serves as the only public access to a community, a main log haul route, and numerous recreational users in the summer months. Complicating maintenance, the road has grades of up to 18 percent and is used by industry's 150-tonne logging trucks. In response, British Columbia Ministry of Transportation District Staff in consultation with others, commenced small-scale field trials in 2000 for a 'New Twist' for a Stabilized Hard Surface Road. Three steps have evolved to the new relatively simple twist and are covered in this paper. The end result when correctly applied results in a sealed hard surface road that will carry heavy loads. For the covering abstract of this conference see ITRD number E216511.
Abstract