Say goodbye to dust, mud and a generally bumpy ride into the Cochrane Ranche Historic site parking lot.
Crews finished adding the milled asphalt to the lot last Thursday, using 1,200 tonnes of repurposed asphalt. Rick Deans, the town’s senior manager of infrastructure, said the biggest advantage is the reduction in ongoing maintenance costs typically required for gravel surfaces and parking lots.
“The savings will be realized in less ongoing operation and maintenance costs. We had intended on repurposing this material so no price was provided for disposal costs.
“It also provides a cleaner environment for the users of the parking lot,” Deans said.
The milled asphalt mitigates the dust and mud because of the hard surface material, which Dean explained would pack almost as hard as ordinary asphalt over time.
The Town of Cochrane has used this concept in other road works projects. The milled asphalt has great characteristics for reuse and this is beneficial for realizing a savings in disposal costs as well as a benefit to the environment and the town, Deans said.
Deans added that the lot was chosen because of the higher volume of visitors entering the lot during the summer for events like the Cochrane Farmer’s Market.
The asphalt was taken from Cochrane roads — part of the Streets Improvement Project. The paving of the lot is part of a number of other tasks scheduled for this summer.
The 2015 project is funded from provincial grants ($1.825M) and $400,000 from the town’s road reserve; this was approved as part of the 2015 budget.
