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New pavement indoctrinated into world of wear-and-tear
Can’t we have nice things?
Remember that brand spanking new, bright, smooth blacktop on Indianapolis Road?
Well, it said hello to its first sign of wear and tear Tuesday.
The eastbound lanes of Indianapolis Road now are now conspicuously tagged with rubber markings along the right edge of the roadway.
Just two months old, the new asphalt has been indoctrinated into the world of wear-and-tear as the black tire marks run from the start of the new pavement near Dairy Castle to out past the Walmart superstore on the city’s East Side.
But if you look carefully at the pavement along East Washington Street, east of Bloomington Street, the same markings are visible but not as obvious as they are on the new asphalt.
Mayor Bill Dory says it seems to be the product of a semi, which locked up the brakes on its trailer. In essence, it resulted in the semi dragging the trailer along and marking the pavement as if some hot-rodder had burned rubber along the strip.
The mayor surmised that the semi may have hit the curb at the Bloomington-Washington street corner while turning east onto Washington Street. And the driver did not realize the brakes on the trailer had locked up.
Fortunately it appears to be only a cosmetic issue.
“It doesn’t look like there’s any damage,” the mayor said, agreeing that there does not appear to be any gouging of the pavement.
The blemishes are likely to disappear over time with regular traffic wear and tear and the effects of Indiana weather.
That’s better than some other new pavement has fared over the years in Greencastle.
The best (or worst) example was when South Jackson Street was repaved in the mid 1980s, ending a long drought of such street repairs in the city.
Within a couple of weeks, however, one of the utility companies had to dig up a line south of Walnut Street, leaving a large ugly patch where smooth pavement once lay.
Mayor Dory said he encountered a similar problem after Anderson Street was resurfaced last year.
“I was livid,” he said upon learning a utility cut was necessary in the newly repaved street. “I told them those had better be the best patches anyone’s ever patched.”