Murrysville will explore alternative treatments for road work

Each year, the cost to repave roads in Murrysville rises, according to municipal Chief Administrator Jim Morrison.

“Hills Church Road is a perfect example,” Morrison said. “That was paved eight years ago and it’s showing a lot of fatigue right now. So we’re looking at whether we should do another overlay, knowing we’ll likely be doing it again in another eight years.”

In order to try and get a little more mileage out of their roads, council members voted 5-0 to advertise for alternative treatments on some municipal roads. It includes treatments such as a flexible road base, an oil-and-fiberglass application that engineer Scott Hilty is “a better treatment than the old tar-and-chip method,” fog seal and seal coat.

Hilty said North Huntingdon and Penn Township officials have taken a similar tack in recent years.

“They put out an alternative for their rural roads, to try some of these treatments,” he said.

Road work with the alternative treatments will be bid separately from Murrysville’s annual paving program, which council awarded April 3 in the form of a $1.5 million contract to Tresco Paving Corp.

“It’s a way to stretch some of those overlay dollars,” Hilty said. “I think we want to see the results and then compare that to the costs for our regular overlay. If we find that the flexible base is something that’s working on our rural roads, maybe we can expand that. We can see what works best for us, and then expand where we’re able.”

Municipal officials have the advantage of well-documented history when it comes to their roads.

“We know when they were paved and what was done,” Morrison said. “We’ll be able to evaluate these treatments as they pertain to whatever was previously done with those roads.”

Most of the municipality’s major, or “collector” roads are repaved on a 10-year cycle, Hilty said. Selected roads would receive a coat of fog seal, a light application of a diluted, slow-setting asphalt emulsion.

“What we’re hoping is that if we can seal them, we can get maybe two or three more years out of them,” Hilty said.