Page 638 - Week 02 - Thursday, 16 February 2017
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engineers in Roads ACT, that that is the best time to be resealing a road. I know that it can be frustrating for members of the community to see a road being resealed when it looks on the surface to be in good condition, but this is exactly the time that we should be resealing roads—preventing any further damage. It is preventive and it is very carefully planned, and includes detailed analysis of the road condition. It is used to help prevent more costly and temporary corrective treatments like pothole patching, pavement rehabilitation and road reconstruction. An annual road pavement resurfacing program is carried out to provide safe driving conditions and prevent premature failure of our roads.
TCCS is continually investigating and trialling new surface treatments. Trials are currently underway on several different treatment solutions, and if these are successful they will be included in future resurfacing programs. Just this week Roads ACT, as members may have noticed in local media, is trialling a product called Tonerseal on Onkaparinga Crescent in Kaleen. This is the first area in the ACT where this product has been trialled. The use of this product sets a new benchmark in sustainability and innovation. The solution will be sprayed onto the road pavement and covered with aggregate.
Tonerseal is a world-first toner and rubber modified spray seal binder that pioneers the use of waste items such as toners from printers, photocopier toner and crumb rubber from used car tyres that would typically be stockpiled or sent to landfill. A total of 1.4 kilometres of road will have this product applied, saving 990 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions. 8,960 recycled printer cartridges and 203 tyres will be incorporated into the road resealing mixture in the trial which would otherwise have gone to landfill.
I will talk briefly about the weather impacts on our natural and built infrastructure. I particularly note the significant rainfall that the ACT experienced last year. Certainly, in my role as Minister for Transport Canberra and City Services, this had a major impact not only on our weed and mowing program but also on our road maintenance program and our road construction program. We went to extensive efforts across a number of different channels to inform the community that the weather impact was significant. That additional rainfall not only meant that there were a number of days when TCCS staff could not be out doing the work that they do every day, including road resealing, road construction, mowing and weeding, but also, contributing to that, the rainfall actually caused additional damage and additional growth in weeds, for example. They have been working very hard to make up for the time lost due to that significant rainfall.
I also note Mrs Kikkert’s comments about the storm damage in late January. Just this week TCCS put out a media release to encourage the community to understand that that was an enormously significant event. TCSS has been working with ESA and other partner agencies to continue the clean-up from that. I did ask this week for the community’s understanding in that because it was a significant event. There was significant damage from the storm event which TCCS and its partner agencies are also working very hard, along with their normal schedule of events, to clean up.
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