Skip to main content

Florida road repaving delivers better surfacing

Paving the road for Florida’s latest mega project is the job of Volvo CE equipped concrete and asphalt specialist Ajax Paving Industries. Florida’s Gulf Coast provides a strong draw for tourists and residents alike, with coastal cities like North Port featuring a humid subtropical climate, beaches and resorts. But beyond the city’s sandy beaches, the streets of North Port had fallen into disrepair, causing transportation troubles.
April 7, 2017 Read time: 3 mins
Contractor Ajax is using Volvo CE pavers for road resurfacing works in Florida
Paving the road for Florida’s latest mega project is the job of 359 Volvo CE equipped concrete and asphalt specialist Ajax Paving Industries

Florida’s Gulf Coast provides a strong draw for tourists and residents alike, with coastal cities like North Port featuring a humid subtropical climate, beaches and resorts. But beyond the city’s sandy beaches, the streets of North Port had fallen into disrepair, causing transportation troubles.

The city worked to keep up with the maintenance needs of the roads, most of which date back to the 1960s, but problems were occurring at a faster rate than repair.

In 2012, North Port was granted a US$46 million bond to upgrade substandard roads in the city. The project began in 2014 and would take three years and include six phases. When fully completed in 2017 the Road Bond Project will renew 428km of highway and include multiple bridges. Construction is now well underway with progress well on track.

Working for the city of North Port is specialist contractor Ajax Paving Industries, which was given the job of milling and resurfacing 108,862tonnes of asphalt as part of Phase Four. This includes putting 32mm of SM-9.5 overlay onto existing roads. For the paving work Ajax used a Volvo 7170 paver, supplied by local dealer Flagler Construction Equipment’s Southwest Florida branch.

The Volvo 7170 paver is fitted with the Ultimat 200, allowing paving widths of up to 6m. Starting at 7:00 in the morning, the screed is heated and within 30 minutes, the first load is arriving. Over the course of each day’s nine-hour shift, the crew lays between 680-726tonnes of asphalt.

Steve Ayers, area manager for Ajax, is pleased with the performance. “This is one of the industry’s true 6m extendable screeds,” he said. “We can complete this entire street in one pass instead of two, saving us time and money.”

Supplied with an extended warranty, the Volvo machine is operating at optimum levels. Dan Maitland, Ajax equipment operations manager, explained that the firm opted for the Volvo P7170 paver because the machine offers low repair and maintenance costs over the 5,000-6,000 operating hours it typically runs its machines for. Beyond total cost of ownership, preventative maintenance is also crucial to Ajax, with its dealer support also proving beneficial.

Satisfied with the Volvo CE machines and the support from Flagler, Ajax has added three of the P7170 pavers to the machine line up for use on projects throughout Florida.

Related Content

  • Further new European pavers were launched at bauma 2013
    May 30, 2013
    Earlier this year several manufacturers announced new European asphalt pavers being launched at bauma 2013, but more surprises were in store at the show - Mike Woof writes. At the beginning of 2013 a number of manufacturers revealed new asphalt pavers being launched at the bauma 2013 exhibition. BOMAG, Caterpillar, Vögele and Volvo CE all announced new asphalt pavers in the shape of the BF900, AP300D, -3 Series units and new wheeled P-6870C respectively. These machines were at the show and all attracted con
  • Ahmedabad airport roll-out for Dynapac
    September 7, 2022
    Dynapac machines have set production records during the upgrade of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in the Indian state of Gujarat.
  • Sophisticated machine telematics packages offered
    September 27, 2013
    Several of the major equipment manufacturers now offer sophisticated telematics packages fitted as standard to their machines. Caterpillar and Komatsu were amongst the leaders in this field, allowing a high level of access to a machine's systems and sub-systems for performance monitoring, maintenance management and geofencing purposes for example. To the customer this offers the chance to address fleet running costs and utilisation, reduce the risk of theft and increase overall efficiency. Customers can eve
  • Vögele Super Dash 3 pavers deliver productivity gains
    March 9, 2017
    Vögele has unveiled two Dash 3 generation asphalt pavers at the CONEXPO-CON/AGG show – the Super 1700-3i and the Super 2000-3i. Both of these tracked machines can also be specified as wheeled pavers, the Super 1703-3i and the Super 2003-3i respectively.