Pringle Creek’s porous asphalt roads are all over the media these days--and for good reason. Take a look at this dramatic photograph showing the Pringle Creek entrance, where the beautiful porous pavement meets the flooded impervious city street.
Click here to see more such photos (thanks, santiago). Clearly, "pervious" is better. No wonder these streets are getting so much media coverage. The latest is Porous Streets Work--Even in Rainy Oregon on the worldchanging website. Columnist Erica Barnett expresses disappointment that supposedly "green" Seattle recently repaved a parking lot near Lake Washington with impervious asphalt:
What reminded me of that incident was a story in the Salem, Oregon Statesman Journal about a system of porous streets in that city's Pringle Creek Community, a housing development that has gotten national praise (even landing on Natural Home's list of the top 10 "green" housing developments in the US) for its green building and sustainable-design practices. Community members had worried that the system would not be able to stand up to Oregon's wet winters; so far, with February getting underway, residents have been hard-pressed to so much as find a puddle.
The two hyperlinks are in the original. The referenced Statesman Journal article is new, so take a look at that. And here is yet another, the website of Construction Equipment Guide. It is featuring Willamette Valley Tabbed for Porous Asphalt Streets, a very technically informative piece. Here's a sample:
The contractor washed and vacuumed the fines out of the pavement before laying the final lift of 2-in. (5 cm) pervious wearing course with a 3/8-in. (0.95 cm) top-size aggregate. The wearing course utilized a polymer modified PG 70-22 grade binder to reduce drain down and enhance long-term durability. The surface course was laid from May 25 to June 2. River Bend Sand and Gravel produced the porous asphalt mix.“This was a unique and challenging project,” said Ron Boschler, president of North Santiam Paving. “We had done a lot of projects using open-graded design, but nothing where the water is supposed to drain through the entire street, like this porous pavement. The pavement held up well under the construction traffic. The paving part of the job was very similar to an ordinary paving job.”
