West end of Woodmen Road in Colorado Springs to be a paving priority next year

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- City officials recently revealed that next year, they will address a previous paving method that didn't work on a stretch of busy Woodmen Road.

It's a stretch that many drivers have noticed and complained about.

Corey Farkas, the city's operations and maintenance manager for public works, said that Woodmen -- from just east of the Academy Boulevard interchange, to the Woodmen Court intersection separating East Woodmen from West Woodmen -- was paved with rubber from old tires mixed into the asphalt.

"We understand that it's a bad road," he said. "A lot of folks think it's a chip seal. So, there was a chip seal on either side of it. Over top of that (Academy) bridge is that old tire rubber asphalt. (Crews will) finish off the tire rubber asphalt over that bridge that's failing. They need to do some work there."

Farkas said that Woodmen, from Woodmen Court to Campus Drive, is already on next year's paving list; the city wants to add the eastern segment from Campus to the Sam's Club entrance -- which is also at the intersection of Olga Willson Way.

"City engineering will take care of paving the Academy overpass," he explained. "Public works will take care of the rest of it."

The practice of adding rubber from old tires to asphalt began in the 1960s and was common in California and Texas; the theory was that rubber would provide a smoother and more durable pavement.

However, for reasons that are unclear, the practice didn't work well in Colorado Springs -- possibly because of the city's higher elevation and mountain climate with freeze-thaw cycles and abrupt temperature changes.

The city wants to reduce the amount of time that parts of the bridge deck under the pavement will be exposed to weather -- which could cause more damage and require a more extensive and expensive repair.

The cost of paving the affected stretch of Woodmen will be included in the last year of the current 2C expanded street paving program funded by a sales tax increase passed by voters in 2015 and extended in 2020.

In November, the city will ask voters to extend the tax a second time, for ten years.