CO 133 Resurfacing from McClure Pass to Redstone

About the Project

Crews on this project resurfaced almost nine miles of Colorado Highway 133 within Gunnison and Pitkin counties. Work began at McClure Pass and extended to the town of Redstone.

In addition to extending the life of the highway, sections of guardrail in the project area were upgraded.

Work Details

The project utilized hot-in-place recycling (HIR)—an innovative and efficient process that repairs and rehabilitates deteriorated highways with specialized equipment. In a HIR process, 100 percent of existing road material is rejuvenated, reused and mixed with small quantities of new asphalt, resulting in less waste and fewer truck trips to bring in new materials.

The HIR process also proceeds much faster than a conventional overlay, moving at 20 to 40 feet per minute, and allows two to four lane miles of roadway to be repaired daily.

Total costs are reduced by about 40 percent compared to a traditional asphalt removal and replacement project, according to Project Engineer Mike Fowler of engineering company SGM.

"Hot in-place recycling was a very good application for this segment of CO 133 that was still in relatively good condition, but needed some preventative maintenance to avoid a much costlier replacement project in the future," Fowler said.

Crews also replaced and upgraded 12,000 linear feet of guardrail as part of this project. The recently completed chip seal was the final step in the process. In addition to providing a more skid-resistant driving surface, a chip seal extends the life of a roadway by providing a protective top coat. The chip seal layer helps to shed water and keep it from seeping into the asphalt and freezing, which causes cracks and potholes, and is why CDOT does chip seal operations on a periodic basis when the underlying pavement is still in good condition.