Mahoning County OKs deal for Schenley Ave. repaving

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Mahoning County commissioners approved a $24,900 agreement with Ronyak Paving Inc. of Burton, Ohio, to perform on-site, re-heat asphalt recycling next week in the repaving of Schenley Avenue between the Youngstown city limits and Hopkins Road in Boardman.

This demonstration project, funded by gasoline-tax revenues, is being done for the first time for the county engineer’s office. It entails heating, grinding and remixing the asphalt on the road and adding liquid asphalt emulsion to it before reapplying the asphalt to the road surface, Marilyn Kenner, chief deputy county engineer, explained at Thursday’s commissioners’ meeting.

“They’ll recycle 2 inches of asphalt and put it back down so we will have a much smoother road surface. We’ll see how long it lasts,” Kenner said.

“It is supposed to be 30 [percent] to 40 percent less expensive than traditional asphalt paving,” she said. “On roads that we have a stable base, this would be a good alternative.”

The 2,330-foot-long, 23-foot-wide section of Schenley Avenue to be repaved using this method has sustained considerable pavement breakup due to freezing and thawing of water on the road, which was last repaved in 2003, Kenner said.

The water ponded on the road because sump-pump discharges from houses went directly to the curb before the engineer’s office redirected those discharges to a storm sewer, Kenner explained.

“Boardman traditionally has a high-water table, so there’s a lot of moisture in the soil, so those sump pumps constantly run,” Kenner added.

Ronyak executives could not be reached to comment.