Open Grade

Two years ago the signs went up on all the streets in my neighborhood -- they were going to repave our roads.

Yeah!

Soon thereafter, they had marked all the areas in the existing roadway that held standing water or were otherwise in worse shape than the rest of the roadbed. I say they because they are an ambiguous them. I have no idea who was going to do the work -- the county? The city? A contract outfit for either?

Well, whoever they were, the only thing those fuckers did was chipseal the surface. The patch in front of my house that was marked off as a standing water area...still today pools water in the exact same manner as it did before. The only difference is that now it has a chipseal, a thinly sprayed layer of sealant mixed with aggregate; aggregate that is now shedding itself off the surface, into the gutters, by the bucket load. I'm out there sweeping up rock along with my sycamore leaves. And chipseal is about as noisy a road surface as you'll come across.

So. They, last Thursday, were shutting down lanes on Franklin Blvd. and were tearing up the existing surface. I stopped on red at an intersection and chatted with the flagman. Funny...he didn't seem like one of 'those' fuckers. I asked what kind of surface they were putting down...open-graded rubber asphalt, the kind that sticks to his shovel.

Yes.

This is the best surface to ride on (although more expensive). And they did a good job of it, for the .8 miles in both directions that they repaved (with nice, marked bike lanes!). He did not know about the other sidewalk tear outs going on a mile to the north, but I'm hoping that at the end of all this Franklin work, I have a nice, striped, smooth, open graded surface to ride on. Everyone who drives on it, rides a bike on it, or who has to live in earshot of it, loves this surface. Even if you aren't familiar with the different surfaces that are used, you know this one the instant you get on it. It's quiet. This roadcrew were most definintely not like the fuckers that did my neighborhood! They were...human beings!!! People with wives, husbands and children, with feelings, hopes and desires!

Asphalt (or bitumen), however, is just the residual product in the petroleum cracking chain...it's residual after you've refined all the other good shit (gasoline, jet fuel, etc.) out of the oil. But with the current prices fetched for refined products, refineries are rushing to install cokers that can convert these residuals into more valuable refined products other than asphalt (e.g., kerosene, diesel). Cokers are capital intensive, but the economics now are right for installation, and they can be used to process heavier and sour-er crudes which will become more and more the norm as all the light sweets deplete faster. Heavy, sour Canadian or Venezuelan crudes. Not your daddy's Brent, Saudi, or West Texas Intermediates.

So...what we're likely gonna find is that as we divert more residuals to refined products, asphalt will have nowhere to go but up in price. And you can bet that CAL DOT will respond by reverting back to the older, cheaper, rougher, and louder dense grade asphalts and...chipseals.

Fuckers...