OCR Text |
Show State trys coal tar roads Coal tar, an important product pro-duct of Utah's steelmaking industry, in-dustry, will be given a chance to prove its value as a road building material here on a state-sanctioned test strip of heavily traveled city highway. The coal tar test strip was laid on a stretch of four-lane divided highway on 13th East, south of 21st South in Salt Lake. The Utah Highways Department De-partment will study closely the road tar as hundreds of thousands thou-sands of vehicles travel over it in all types of weather conditions. con-ditions. Past performances give every indication that the coal tar will pass the State's scrutiny scru-tiny with flying colors. " Of importance to Utahns and local industry is that this coal tar originated from coal mines deep m the bowels of the state; the tar was driven off from the coal in coke ovens located in Utah; the tar was then refined in a local plant; and the finished product was laid on a 'Salt Lake City road by a Utah firm. Coal tar has a long record of satisfactory service as a paving material. For over a half -century it has been used in both new construction and in road maintenance. With the recently stepped-up road construction con-struction program, however, road tar's virtues are finding increasing favor. Furthermore, it is available in an increasing amount in this area. Of major importance is coal tar's unique ability to penetrate pene-trate into very small voids, without separation or loss of binding properties. Due to this penetrating property, the tar coats and "binds the dust particles par-ticles located beneath the road surface. At the same time, it waterproofs the surface, so that it sheds surface water that would otherwise soak into the roadway and destroy it. In addition, ad-dition, the" tar treatment, will also help to toughen or stabilize sta-bilize the surface. With Utah's recent hard winter still in vivid memory, and subsequent tear-up of many area roads, a major benefit ben-efit of a coal tar surface is that it is not affected by any of the commonly used ice-control chemicals. Coal tar roads contribute immensely to road safety. Tar-surface Tar-surface roads are skid-resistant. And the surface will not be softened by constant contact con-tact with grease, oil, gasoline and kerosene. |