About 185 miles of Northeast Texas highways will receive new surfaces during the summer of 2015 with a contract awarded in September by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).
The Texas Transportation Commission approved a bid of $7.4 million from Missouri Petroleum Products Company out of Mountain View, Mo. to seal coat highways in nine counties located within the Atlanta District.
“Seal coating a highway involves placing a layer of hot asphalt over the old pavement and then covering it with crushed stone,” said Robert H. Ratcliff, District Engineer in Atlanta. “This is a relatively inexpensive process that makes the roadway surface watertight and improves skid resistance.”
In an effort to help keep used tires off Texas landscapes, the district is requiring that about half of the asphalt used to be mixed with “crumb rubber” made from grinding up old tires.
“Using crumb rubber in our asphalt has proved to be an excellent process for seal coating our highways. The rock is less likely to pull loose, there are fewer occurrences of the asphalt bleeding through the rock, it can be used at lower temperatures and on a wider variety of surfaces,” Ratcliff said.
The following highways are scheduled to be resurfaced during the summer of 2015:
| County | Highway | Limit | Miles |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bowie | SH 8 | FROM: ARKANSAS STATE LINE TO: IH 30 | 6.6 |
| Bowie | US 259 | FROM: 0.3 MILE SOUTH OF FM 44 TO: MORRIS COUNTY LINE | 12.5 |
| Bowie | IH 369 NB FRONTAGE | FROM: SH 93TO: US 82 | 2.9 |
| Bowie | IH 369 SB FRONTAGE | FROM: SH 93TO: US 82 | 2.9 |
| Bowie | FM 992 | FROM: FM 44 SOUTHTO: US 82 | 2.3 |
| Bowie | FM 989 | FROM: FM 2516 TO: US 59 | 2.9 |
| Cass | SH 77 | FROM: FM 1841 TO: 0.5 MILE EAST OF FM 1635 | 3.9 |
| Cass | SH 155 | FROM: SH 49TO: MARION COUNTY LINE | 3.9 |
