Roads feeling bumpier? Blame soaring costs

Local budgets busted by rising prices for supplies and increasing wages. Result: Repairs put off.

Lancaster New Era

Published: Jul 17, 2008
11:31 EST

Lancaster

By RYAN ROBINSON, Staff

West Lampeter Township budgeted $300,000 to resurface 12 streets this summer.

Then the price of oil used to make asphalt skyrocketed.

Then state officials ruled that workers laying asphalt for municipalities must receive higher pay.

To make up for the higher road paving costs, West Lampeter Manager Ray D'Agostino cut about $50,000 of work — two long streets — from the township's paving to-do list.

It's a typical scenario for municipalities this summer. You may notice a bumpy road in your area go longer before it's repaved.


      Soaring asphalt prices


As soaring fuel costs hit Americans' pocketbooks hard, townships and boroughs also find themselves over a barrel. Instead of raising taxes, some here are simply fixing fewer roads for their residents.

"The rising prices of asphalt and petroleum products, combined with the prevailing wage issue, is eating into what we can accomplish with our road budgets," D'Agostino said.

Salisbury Township will not apply seal coating to its roads this summer for the first time in at least 34 years, according to Manager Les Houck.

Seal coating — a thin layer of oil with stone on top — protects roads from water deterioration, making them last longer.

The eastern Lancaster County township had planned to spend $150,000 to $200,000 on seal coating before roadwork costs shot up, Houck said.

Salisbury also has cut back on its laying of asphalt in recent years.

"We tried to do four to five miles of road per year," Houck said. "Now, we're down to about two miles."

Jeff Sweigart, vice president of McMinn's Asphalt, said the cost of the gooey oil at the bottom of a barrel used to make asphalt has risen from $329 per ton last July to a whopping $675.

That's the major reason for asphalt costs rising, but not the only one.

The state Department of Labor and Industry sent notices in April that all municipal road contracts were suddenly subject to prevailing wage, retroactive to Jan. 1.

That meant non-union contractors had to pay union-scale wages for municipal work.

Sweigart said that added $1.67 per ton to municipalities' cost of laying asphalt.

D'Agostino said that increased paving costs by 5 to 10 percent. It will mean one less road gets paved in West Lampeter each year, he added.

Overall, the cost to lay asphalt over a city block has jumped from $27,000 last year to nearly $40,000, Sweigart said.

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Feeling the Pinch: One in a series of occasional stories on how the slumping economy impacts people here.

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At McMinn's since 1971, Sweigart said that jump is much worse than others in the past.

During the energy crisis of the early 1970s, for example, the cost to lay asphalt shot up $3.60 per ton.

Two years ago, the cost went up nearly $10 a ton.

In just the last seven months, it has gone up $20 a ton.

McMinn's closed one of its five blacktop plants in Lancaster County — at Cedar Hill Quarry in Peach Bottom — earlier this month due to decreased demand for asphalt.

On Monday, McMinn's laid off four workers, though they will be brought back on Aug. 1, Sweigart said.

"I can't tell the younger guys how to deal with this because I don't know myself," Sweigart said. "It's never been anywhere near anything like this."

Jerry Shaffer, director of paving at B.R. Kreider & Son of Manheim, said paving projects in the private sector have been significantly scaled back in the last few months because of rising costs.

"Oil is pushing the cost of jobs through the roof," he said. "It is really hurting our industry."

Sweigart said an increasingly popular technology being employed by oil refineries in just the last few years is beginning to contribute to higher asphalt prices.

"Cokers" can refine the material in oil that used to end up on the market as asphalt and fuel oil into more lucrative gasoline and diesel fuel. Less of that material going for asphalt means higher prices, he said.

Beyond increasing asphalt prices and worker wages, Houck said townships have to battle other rising roadwork costs.

Township trucks that haul dirt and rock and equipment for projects burn a lot of expensive fuel.

The cost of aluminum signs along roadways has increased and the state now requires them to be larger. Line painting is mandated on more roads. Traffic lights are more expensive.

Houck also emphasized that the amount of money the state gives townships to help pay for local road projects has not increased along with the costs.

It all leads to a simple choice for townships.

"Higher taxes or worse road condition," Houck said.

Some road and bridge projects will have to be sacrificed, he said.

Houck went a step further, saying municipal governments will eventually have to provide less services.

"Townships originally took care of the roads. Then they got into parks, libraries, recreation centers," he said. "We're going to have to switch from the frills."


Staff writer Ryan Robinson can be reached at rrobinson@LNPnews.com or 481-6032.