Accomplishments Many for RPA By Jeffrey Reed, International Surfacing Systems, Chandler, Arizona As we come to the end of my two year term as President of the Rubber Pavements Association I'm somewhat over-whelmed with the number of accomplishments our members, staff and stakeholders delivered. We have a right to be proud!   To highlight a few: Our Association funded and finished a major study on the mix design properties of Asphalt Rubber. With the help of staff, our contrac-tors, consultants and the Northern California Rubberized Asphalt Center we successfully completed important emissions testing for acceptance of hot plants producing Asphalt Rubber mixes under the most stringent air quality guidelines in the country. Our Safety Committee produced a fine video on safety precautions when working with AR Blending equipment. We began a national advertising program promoting the benefits of asphalt rubber. We held or helped sponsor over thirtyeight seminars throughout the United States and numerous foreign countries. We have helped produce and place AR test sections at the Turner-Fairbanks Laboratories of the FHWA for traffic simulation studies and at numerous sites in Arizona and California for the long-term study of our special AR noise reducing pavements. AR is now in common usage in more states than ever before and is being supported by more enlightened and forward thinking public officials intent on improving their road net-works. We RPA members are a diverse group of contractors, CRM producers and others stakeholders who are committed to the success of Asphalt Rubber in the marketplace. While many of us compete daily in the marketplace, we come together with a passion and common purpose believing that non-proprietary Asphalt Rubber as a binder in Chipseals, SAMIs and Hotmix is the best, longest lasting, most cost effective pavement process for building and preserving our road networks. As an added benefit it has major ecological advantages in reducing and removing used tires from the environment and noise pollution from our urban highways corridors.

With the expiration ten years ago of the patents on Asphalt-Rubber and the technology coming into the public domain there has been a tremendous growth in AR being used in both Hot Mix and Chipseals. Competition and greater efficiency of newer mixing equipment has reduced the cost of the binder at a time when asphalt pricing has continued to escalate making the use of Asphalt Rubber binders in pavement surfacing systems one of the most cost effective road preservation strategies. It has taken nearly thirty years of work to get here.    Lately we have seen some major companies promote other alternative road surfacing binders and mixes, some CRM and some containing other "secret ingredients." Most of these proprietary products require U.S. and foreign licenses and engage in a intensive marketing effort to carve out of the public open bidding process expensive alternatives with dubious claims of value and equality to Asphalt Rubber. The question is "of value" to whom?    Asphalt Rubber projects in California and elsewhere are now being bid and built under stringent multi-year warrantees. It is only fair and proper that these new systems be made to compete under the same warranty provisions and be in the public domain with generic specifications before public funds are spent on them.    As I look forward to next year and beyond there are numerous storm clouds on the horizon. Many government agencies are facing huge deficits and are seeking to balance their budget by using roadway funds, an action which will have dire consequences to this nations investment in its road maintenance programs. After years of underfunding actual needs, the Governor of California has just announced major cutbacks in road maintenance spending. It is a fallacy to think one can "borrow" short-term from needed maintenance and pay it back later. The future multiple required to get even is three to five times greater. If we do not invest in maintaining our road pavements with annually dedicated budg-ets, irrespective of political expediency, we may not expect our highways and streets to improve let alone keep from getting worse. The economic burden on us individually and on the economy as a whole for this quick-fix scheme has been shown time and again to be erroneous. We would be far better to forgo major capital highway projects than to not maintain our existing roadway investment. The Governor and Caltrans would not consider delaying cleaning and painting the State's landmark bridges.    A little faded paint does not pose a hazard to the public. Deteriorated roadways can be extremely dangerous to the motoring public. I know I'm preaching to the choir to all those that receive this newsletter but it is up to us to influence those who can make a difference into properly funding maintaining our pavements...hopefully with Asphalt Rubber in the mix.    It has been an honor and pleasure to have been chosen to be the President of the RPA these past two years by my peers. The dedication of our Executive Board, Technical Advisory Board, members and staff truly make this Association extraordinary.

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