The paving was part of a timber bridge rehabilitation project performed by Mainroad South Island Contracting’s Bridge Crew as part of the British Columbia Ministry of Transportation & Infrastructure Service Area 01 Highway Maintenance Contract. Part of the rehabilitation project was to remove and replace the existing and badly deteriorated asphalt surface. After reviewing the project, the location and the timber surface, the decision was made to trial EZ Street Asphalt for the resurfacing material. The bridge deck is approximately 185 m long and 6m wide. Port Renfrew is approximately two to two and a half hours driving distance away from either Victoria or Duncan on Vancouver Island. In turn, it is also approximately two to two and a half hours driving distance from the nearest asphalt plant. The bridge is a single lane timber bridge with a timber bridge deck. The bridge is part of the main ring road around this area of Vancouver Island and must remain open to traffic at all times. The project had the ability to close the bridge to trucks and heavy traffic for one day only and this had to be planned and advertised to the public well in advance. The bridge takes a reasonable amount of logging trucks and other heavy traffic.

The paving crew utilized a small paver approximately 3 m wide. The project required the ability to keep controlled, one way light vehicle traffic crossing the bridge throughout the day. This called for the bridge to be paved in 2 x 3 m wide paver runs.

The EZ Street Asphalt being used on this project had been produced three weeks in advance of the paving and was delivered to Mainroad’s Duncan yard the day prior to the scheduled paving. This particular batch of EZ Street Asphalt was made using bio-fuel produced from waste vegetable oil. This is the first bio-fuel production of EZ Street in Canada.

The weather conditions were not ideal for the utilization of regular asphalt but were ideal to demonstrate the benefits of EZ Street Asphalt for paving. The timber bridge deck was damp and wet in areas at the time of installation. No tack coat was used for the paving nor was it required for EZ Street Asphalt. The damp bridge deck would not have allowed the use of a tack coat.

There was a period of heavy rain during the paving. The rain was heavy enough that it would not have allowed regular asphalt to be used. EZ Street Asphalt is hydrophobic so is not effected by water at all and the paving progress was not halted or impacted due to the weather conditions.

EZ Street Asphalt is a cold product and does not require the paving equipment to be hot for the installation. This proved beneficial as the product was able to be transported to the site, held in trucks for a period of the day before being emptied into the paver without any deterioration to the product or any waste material. During the installation, a large fully loaded truck and transporter needed to cross the bridge. At this period only about two thirds of one run of paving had been completed. To enable the truck to pass, the paver moved off the bridge and the truck straddled both the EZ Street Asphalt and the unpaved section to cross. At this point, the EZ Street Asphalt had only approximately four passes with a roller. The truck passed over the site leaving virtually no impression on the brand new and virtually uncompacted surface.

The paver broke down for a period of time (about 1 hour) during the installation. This situation combined with the remote location and distance from an asphalt plant can cause significant issues when using regular asphalt and the temperature would be continuing to drop the longer it had to wait for the paver to be back in operation. Due to the location of this project the asphalt would have had to travel two to two and a half hours before getting to the site. This proved not to be an issue for EZ Street Asphalt or the paving operation as EZ Street Asphalt is a cold product that can remain waiting on trucks for almost a limitless period of time. In the instance of this project, EZ Street Asphalt had been produced three weeks earlier and had been sitting in stock pile awaiting the project.

EZ Street Asphalt Benefits over Regular Asphalt for this project:

• Remote Location – EZ Street Asphalt is able to be used in any geographical location totally independent of the location of an asphalt plant. Regular asphalt is limited in the distance it can realistically be transported from the plant due to the “window” the temperature of the product allows.
• Weather Conditions – EZ Street Asphalt was able to be used in any weather condition and in any temperature. During this project, the Crew experienced heavy rain during the installation which would have halted paving for regular asphalt.
• Flexible Pavement – EZ Street Asphalt maintains high pavement strength while remaining flexible enough to move fractionally with the pavement structure below. In this instance, the timber bridge deck will flex with traffic movements which would fracture regular asphalt.
• Self Healing Cracks – Structure or pavement movement causes surface cracks. EZ Street Asphalt will “self heal” binding back closed under traffic movement.
• Immediate Heavy Traffic Usage – EZ Street Asphalt is a cold product and is compaction based to cure. EZ Street Asphalt can be trafficked immediately after the paver and roller have moved away from the traffic lane. This benefit was made evident on the project when the loaded truck and transporter crossed the bridge during the paving works.
• Age of Product – EZ Street Asphalt has a long shelf life. The product is always made in advance of the installation. Whether this is a week in advance or four months in advance, there is never a situation where the asphalt production and the paving are required to work in conjunction. The logistical relief this provides is extremely beneficial for any paving project.
• General Product Benefits – EZ Street has a number of standard benefits that are independent to any paving project:
1. There is no tack coat required prior to the application of EZ Street Asphalt.
2. Being a cold asphalt and a compaction based product there are no paver joins. The final surface will be one single mat from curb to curb. This eliminates an inbuilt weakness in the pavement.
3. Any paving project will use 10% less EZ Street Asphalt per tonne than regular asphalt. As EZ Street Asphalt is lighter than regular asphalt (EZ Street is 2 tonnes / m3 and asphalt is 2.4 tonne / m3), the project will require approximately 10% less overall tonnage. For instance a paving job using 1,000 mt of asphalt will use only 900mt of EZ Street.
4. There will be no waste or unused product dumped when paving with EZ Street. Any unused product can simply be returned to the stockpile for use at a later date.