Summer is time for road trips and enjoying the great outdoors. Wherever your travels take you, you know smooth asphalt roads provide comfort, drivability and performance. #WhereWeBelong

Check out NAPA’s road trip anthem, Where We Belong on YouTube.

Asphalt Pavement Alliance Announces Winners of 2021 Perpetual Pavement Award (PPA)

The Washington State Dept. of Transportation was notified on April 14th, 2022 that it has won three 2021 PPAs from the Asphalt Pavement Alliance (APA). The award celebrates long-life asphalt pavements from across the USA that highlight the characteristics of a Perpetual Pavement design.

In the “By Performance” category, the awards are presented to state transportation departments and local agency road owners for well-performing asphalt pavements that are at least 35 years old with proven high-quality structural design. To earn the award, the pavement must have not suffered a structural failure, and it should have an average interval between resurfacing of no less than 13 years. The pavement must demonstrate the characteristics expected from a long-life, Perpetual Pavement design: excellence in design, quality in construction, and value for the taxpayers.

The 2021 By Performance award winner is for a 4.4 mile section of highway on State Route 7 in Pierce county. This is the eighth Perpetual Pavement Award by Performance earned by WSDOT.  The roadway was opened to traffic in 1952 (70 years ago).

“One of the keys to infrastructure sustainability is long pavement life,” said Amy Miller, P.E., national director of the Asphalt Pavement Alliance. “These Perpetual Pavement Award-winning roads demonstrate how asphalt roads can be engineered to last indefinitely with only routine maintenance and periodic surface renewal.”

Engineers at the National Center for Asphalt Technology (NCAT) at Auburn University, evaluated the nominations and validated the results for the 2021 Perpetual Pavement Award winners.

Winning agencies are honored by their local state asphalt pavement association and are presented with an engraved crystal obelisk. The names of the winning agencies and projects are added to a plaque on permanent display at the NCAT Research Center at Auburn University. Since the Perpetual Pavement Award was first presented in 2001, 176 pavements in 37 U.S. states, one Canadian province and one County have been honored with the award.

A video on the Perpetual Pavement concept is available here.

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The Asphalt Pavement Alliance (www.driveasphalt.org) is a partnership of the Asphalt Institute (AI), the National Asphalt Pavement Association (NAPA) and the State Asphalt Pavement Associations. The Asphalt Pavement Alliance’s mission is to establish asphalt as the preferred choice for quality, performance and the environment.

For more information, contact:
Asphalt Pavement Alliance
Amy Miller, P.E., 904-591-3333, amiller@asphaltroads.org

Washington State Department of Transportation
Claudia Bingham Baker, 360-357-2789, Bakerc@wsdot.wa.gov

Welcome to the Washington Asphalt Pavement Association’s Asphalt Pavement Guide.  This Guide will provide you with a general overview of hot mix asphalt (HMA) pavement from materials to design to construction to maintenance.  It is intended to assist those who work in any way with HMA pavement including architects, engineers, contractors, government agencies, private consultants, students and homeowners.

Modern on-line tools are available for pavement structural design calculations once the general principals HMA design and construction are understood.

There are over 4.05 million public centerline road miles (8.52 million lane miles) in the U.S. and of this, 2.50 million miles (or 63 percent) are paved (FHWA 2009).  About 70 percent of Washington State roads are paved.  Nearly 94% of the paved roads in the U.S. are paved with asphalt surfacing (Asphalt Institute 2014), which is a testament to the enduring value of asphalt roads.  An extensive list of AsphaltFacts can be found at the Asphalt.Facts website.

As a member of the Washington Asphalt Pavement Association (WAPA), you will have access to the latest technologies, resources and innovations for the industry.  In addition to networking sessions where you can interact with your counterparts at local and state agencies, WAPA plays an active role in lobbying efforts on the industry’s behalf in Olympia.  Regular members of WAPA are also granted membership in the National Asphalt Pavement Association (NAPA) at no additional cost, giving them access to national technical and advocacy resources.

WAPA serves as the focused “voice of the industry” in Washington state.  Through active engagement with member companies, state & local agencies, the legislature, related trade associations and a wide variety of private entities, WAPA supports and promotes high quality standards and constantly works to help deliver best value of pavements all across the state.

There is no doubt that societal trends and economic realities will shape the pavement market going forward. Those driving factors include public funding issues, an emphasis on sustainable growth and livability, environmental stewardship, employment trends and future supply/capacity.  Accounting for all of these factors, asphalt pavements are perfectly positioned to address the future needs for livable, thriving communities, from freeways to residential streets as well as the other “everyday” infrastructure all around us, such as bike trails paved with porous asphalt.