Asphalt FACTS
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A Perpetual Pavement is an asphalt pavement designed and built to last indefinitely without any structural reconstruction.
Cracks and other distresses happen only in the top layer, so the only rehabilitation ever needed is renewal of the surface.
In 2001, the Asphalt Pavement Alliance (APA) created a Perpetual Pavement Award program to highlight agencies and road owners that used these principles when they built their roadways. The APA's Perpetual Pavement Award program has recognized more than 100 pavements with long lives across 30 states and a Canadian province. Via asphaltroads.org, the APA states these perpetual pavements "were all at least 35 years old when honored, and had never experienced a structural failure. To qualify, a road could not have had more than 4 inches of new material added over the previous 35 years, and it could not have been resurfaced more frequently than once every 13 years. The winning pavements range in age from 35 years to 75 years, and the average age was 44 years at the time the award was won."
SC has won the prestigious award six times since 2001. Recently, SCDOT was notified that they have won a 2016 APA Perpetual Pavement Award for a section of I-26 in Berkeley County. We will have more on the 2016 award in the April edition.
SCAPA presents SCDOT with 2015 APA Perpetual Pavement Award.
