Western Builder, September 2012
Volume 102, Number 9
By Paul Fournier
Minnesota’s Department of Transportation continues its practical research of pavement preservation techniques with the recent demonstration of micro surfacing containing emulsified highly polymer modified asphalt (HiMA) on a
section of Trunk Highway 23.
ASTECH Corporation of St. Joseph, Minn., applied the micro surfacing on a one-mile section of the two-lane highway near the city of St. Cloud, the county seat of Stearns County and the largest population center in the state’s central region. Bisected by the Mississippi River, St. Cloud is a regional transportation hub in Minnesota, with major roadways including Interstate Highway 94, U.S. Highway 10, and Minnesota State Highways (Trunk Highways) 15 and 23 passing through the municipality.
Located about 65 miles northwest of Minneapolis-St. Paul, the city of St. Cloud lies within Mn-DOT’s District 3, which has the largest population base outside of the Twin Cities metropolitan area. District 3 encompasses all or part of 14 counties, and its personnel plan, design, construct and maintain roughly 1,650 center-line miles (nearly 4000 lane-miles) of Interstate, U.S. and trunk highways.