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| 7/24/2010 4:25:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article | City eyes high-tech pothole filler
But cost of machine makes municipal sharing a must
Ed Nadolski
EDITOR IN CHIEF
With more miles of local roads than most cities its size and the ravages of the typical Wisconsin winter taking a yearly toll, Burlington is prime for potholes.
But, instead of simply putting up with bone-jarring travel and a litany of complaints from residents, Mayor Bob Miller is taking a proactive approach to the bumper crop of potholes.
The mayor is contemplating the merits of the city purchasing a secret weapon in the battle against this archenemy of his street department and motorists everywhere.
The object of his investigation is the RA-400 pothole patcher - a truck-mounted, joystick-controlled machine that can slay a pothole with a lasting patch in about a minute. The machine, which is safe to use in moving traffic and creates patches that can be driven on immediately, is made by Rosco Manufacturing, a division of Denver-based Leeboy Co.
Miller said the RA-400 is revolutionary for four main reasons:
• The brief amount of time it takes to repair potholes;
• The fact that it can be used year-round;
• The truck-mounted design allows a single operator to handle the task; and
• The patches last as long as 36-43 months, according to company officials.
However, it also comes with a price tag that reflects its abilities: $195,000.
"In my own mind, I have a hard time justifying that cost for just the city," Miller said.
So, figuring other area communities would be similarly intrigued by the machine's abilities, Miller began to explore the possibility of the RA-400 being jointly purchased and used by several municipalities, which potentially would reduce the initial capital cost for the city and cut the time to recoup the money through savings vs. the traditional way of filling potholes.
He invited officials throughout the area to attend a demonstration of the RA-400 in Burlington earlier this month. The machine patched potholes in both asphalt and concrete at several different sites in the city. Representatives from 11 municipalities attended and were impressed by what they saw, according to Miller.
"The original concept was: 'Let's cost-share,'" Miller said. "But once we started talking about it, a lot of them said, 'If you buy it, we'll contract with you to fill our potholes.'"
The reason for that response, Miller said, is that there is a learning curve for operators of the machine to overcome. If some communities would only use the machine for a certain number of days each year, they wondered whether it would make sense to commit staff time to the training needed to become proficient at operating it.
Miller said the city will now have to figure out whether providing the service to other communities would bring in enough money to make purchasing the machine cost-effective.
"I've got to have something definite in hand from the other communities," Miller said referring to a commitment from other municipalities to use the service for a certain number of days over a period of years.
"That's what it boils down to - can we justify the numbers for the amount of work we have to do?" he added.
The RA-400 and previous models significantly reduce the number of workers and the time needed to fix potholes, according to an article in "Public Works Magazine."
A single, experienced operator can patch between 300 and 400 potholes during a 10-hour workday, the article states.
The operator, using a boom mounted to the front of the vehicle, cleans out the pothole with compressed air, sprays a tack coat into the hole followed by a mixture of aggregate and hot asphalt. The patch is finished off with a coat of dry aggregate.
Currently in Burlington, crews patch potholes by hand during cold-weather months with a cold-mix patching material that can be obliterated in as little as a 30 days, Miller said. Longer-lasting repairs are done during the summer with a hot-mix patch.
While pothole patching machines make sense for state transportation departments that deal with thousands of miles of highway, whether the same equipment makes fiscal sense for smaller communities remains to be seen.
Miller said the city will take several months to determine whether the RA-400 could be cost-effective here. That will also give local officials a chance to see how the patches hold up to winter weather.
"We want to see what happens when the weather freezes and we run a snowplow over them," Miller said.
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