The 2007 California Pavement Preservation Conference

• Agenda
• Presentations
• Exhibitor Information

The conference was held April 11-12 in Union City, California. Nearly 350 representatives from local, regional, state and federal agencies, industry and academia attended, representing a total of 141 different organizations. Participants shared their considerable expertise and wide-ranging experience in the areas of pavement preservation for both flexible and rigid pavements. Over 30 exhibitors were on hand to share their knowledge on specific pavement preservation treatments and techniques.

A well-executed, systematic pavement preservation program, utilizing timely, appropriate and successive preservation treatments, will have the cumulative effect of postponing costly rehabilitation, preventing the need for reconstruction, and improving overall pavement condition system-wide. This conference demonstrated the benefits of such a program, stressed the importance of using a Pavement Management System for inventory, capture of work history, deterioration modeling, needs assessment, and budgetary planning, and introduced the full-spectrum of pavement preservation strategies.

Steve Takigawa, Chief of Caltrans' Division of Maintenance and a vocal proponent for pavement preservation, challenged attendees to identify three things learned at the conference, then apply those three things in their daily work. The final measure of the conference's success will be the attendees' application of the knowledge gained and lessons learned from conference presentations to improve roadway conditions.

Michael Miles, Deputy Director of Caltrans' Maintenance and Operations, encouraged individuals to use creative ways to keep their "good roads good" by applying new and innovative processes and treatments. Caltrans is actively working toward the goal of reducing the total number of distressed lane miles statewide and pavement preservation is an integral part of this effort.

Jim Sorenson, Office of Asset Management for the FHWA, reminded the audience that our investment in highways exceeds $2 trillion and we must protect and preserve this investment, just as we would for our personal automobiles and houses. The ISTEA bill of 1992 initiated the pavement preservation effort and we have come a long way since. We must treat the right road at the right time with the right treatment, resisting the urge to treat the worst pavements first.

The remaining speakers delivered presentations on a variety of pavement preservation topics. The speakers included Shakir Shatnawi, Cathrina Barros, Kirsten Stahl and Ric Maggenti of Caltrans; Steve Mueller, and Jason Dietz of FHWA; Gary Hicks of the California Pavement Preservation Center, Bill O'Leary of the Foundation for Pavement Preservation, and Laura Melendy of the CA-LTAP/Technology Transfer Program; Phil Demery, Scott McGolpin, Theresa Romell, Tom Borman, George Bradley, Erik Updyke, and Jerry Dankbar representing local and regional agencies; and Joe Ririe, Scott Dmytrow, Jim Towns, Scott Metcalf, Lowell Parkison, Bob McCrea, Jim Brownridge, Skip Brown, Jeff Smith, Don Matthews, John Roberts, Gary Hildebrand, and Casey Holloway from industry. Most of these presentations can be found here.

Presented by the California Pavement Preservation Task Group, this conference was made possible through the cooperative efforts of the California Local Technical Assistance Program, the California Pavement Preservation Center, the California Department of Transportation, the Federal Highway Administration and the Maintenance Superintendents Association.

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